Tennis knows how to bring out the passion, and Stan Wawrinka is known for his love for the sport. The player who once stood alongside the Big Three back in the days has been having a rough 2025 season. Stan Wawrinka has only competed at clay-court tournaments since the second half of March, most of them on the Challenger Tour. The 2015 French Open champion’s results have been mixed, but he played pretty well to make the semifinal in Iasi last week. Now, heading into the Swiss Open, he’s faced a tough challenge against Alexander Shevchenko.

On Tuesday, 40-year-old ATP veteran Stan Wawrinka made his debut—and a bit of a scene—against rising Kazakh talent Alexander Shevchenko. The match didn’t exactly go as planned for the three-time Grand Slam champ, who went down 6-3, 6-2 in just 1 hour and 15 minutes.

But the real drama came in the first set. After losing the sixth game, Wawrinka hurled his racket to the clay in frustration. Not done yet, he picked it up and snapped it clean over his knee. The crowd chuckled, but the umpire wasn’t amused, handing him a racket abuse warning.

On court, it was Shevchenko’s day from start to finish. The young Kazakh saved all five break points and came up big in the stats—putting away 29 winners to Wawrinka’s 16, while both hovered around 20 unforced errors. He broke the Swiss star in the sixth game of the first set, then opened the second set with another break to take control.

This wasn’t Stan Wawrinka’s first meltdown on court—and definitely not his first knee-powered racket smash. Fans may recall a similar outburst back in 2018 during a three-set loss to American Sam Querrey in the Queen’s Club ATP 500 second round. Stan snapped his racket through his knee with ridiculous ease, like it was just part of the routine. And don’t forget his fiery 2013 match against longtime rival Novak Djokovic, where he completely lost it after bungling a backhand passing shot.

Perhaps his frustration is understandable to an extent. The 40-year-old has struggled to win a title since 2017! It was the only title he won that year at Geneva, after he once stood at the top three of the sport at the No.3 ranking in 2014! Not to mention, while he’s competed at mainly Challenger events, he lost in the first round of the French Open to the 24-year-old Briton, Jacob Fearnley. Which raised a few questions about his possible retirement from the sport!

Stan Wawrinka addresses his thoughts on retiring

The former French Open champion was gifted a wildcard for Roland Garros this year. Though he’s created unforgettable moments on these courts, his latest campaign was brief. Jacob Fearnley ousted the three-time Grand Slam winner 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-2 in just over two hours, ending Wawrinka’s run in the opening round. After the match, Wawrinka slumped into his press conference, visibly disappointed.

When asked about retirement, he didn’t dodge the question: “I am here in front of you after losing first round of the French Open, but yeah I am of course close to the end. I’m not stopping right now, that’s for sure. I’m getting closer each week that’s for sure. In general, I think I still play some good tennis, move well, I still enjoy it.” The match itself was a battle—at least early on.

After trading breaks in the first set, both players found their groove in some high-quality rallies. Wawrinka tried to draw on his big-stage experience, repeatedly putting Fearnley under pressure. But the young Brit always found answers. Serving at 15-30 and 5-4 down, Fearnley smacked a stunning backhand and followed up with a clutch ace to stave off the threat and take the game.

As Stan added, “Although those losses are getting more difficult to swallow. It’s all about the balance with all the sacrifice and everything you’re doing in one side to be at that level, you need to kind of have some wins on the other side. So far I’m not getting too many wins. We’ll see what’s going to come in the next few weeks.”

Momentum swung for good in the second set. Stan Wawrinka showed some nerves, firing a forehand wide to give Fearnley a 3-1 lead. The Brit barely dropped a point on serve from there, cruising through the set and into the third with all the momentum.

Wawrinka did fire up the French crowd briefly by breaking back to 2-2 in the third, but Fearnley’s college-honed grit shone through. He shrugged off the raucous support, broke again, and rolled through the next four games to wrap up the straight-sets win.

Now that Stan Wawrinka is out of the Swiss Open, questions about his next move are back on the table. Could we see one more fierce run from the Swiss legend? Let’s hear your take in the comments!