{"id":386204,"date":"2026-01-03T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386204\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:55:08","slug":"wawrinka-opens-farewell-tour-with-comeback-win-at-united-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386204\/","title":{"rendered":"Wawrinka opens farewell tour with comeback win at United Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PERTH, Australia &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=264\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stan Wawrinka<\/a>&#8216;s 40-year-old legs didn&#8217;t let him down over three-plus hours in his first singles match of a 2026 farewell tour Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Three-time Grand Slam singles champion Wawrinka beat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3511\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arthur Rinderknech<\/a> of France, who is ranked 29th to Wawrinka&#8217;s 157th, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5). The match went 3 hours, 16 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Wawrinka announced in December that this year would be his last on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of his first match, Wawrinka said he hoped to move back into the top 100 before he retires. His highest ranking was No. 3, achieved when he won the Australian Open in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/47359679\/stan-wawrinka-says-2026-final-chapter-playing-career\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r565353_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m happy with the decision [to retire] and feeling at peace with that,&#8221; Wawrinka said.<\/p>\n<p>The United Cup is among a number of tournaments being played over the next two weeks Down Under ahead of the Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on Jan. 18.<\/p>\n<p>His teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2183\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Belinda Bencic<\/a> started off the tie Saturday with a 6-2, 6-4 win over France&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=4453\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leolia Jeanjean<\/a>, giving the Swiss team a winning 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PERTH, Australia &#8212; Stan Wawrinka&#8216;s 40-year-old legs didn&#8217;t let him down over three-plus hours in his first singles&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-386204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}