Wawrinka Gets His Wild Card: Kypson's Withdrawal Opens New York

Stan Wawrinka will play the US Open. On Wednesday 26 August the USTA gave him the eighth wild card in the men's draw, left open by the injury withdrawal of American Patrick Kypson, who had been awarded it.

"I'm incredibly excited to accept the wild card for the 2026 US Open and look forward to competing in front of the fans in New York once again,"

the Swiss said.

Eight days earlier the answer had been no. On 18 August the tournament announced seven invitations without his name on the list and left the eighth marked "to be announced". That place went to Kypson, and now it comes back to him.

Wawrinka is 41 and ranked 127 in the world. At Flushing Meadows he won in 2016, beating Novak Djokovic in the final: the main draw that starts on Sunday 30 August falls on the tenth anniversary of that title, the last of his three Slams.

The alternative was qualifying, where he stood as the eighteenth alternate, a number that made the idea little more than theoretical. A year ago, ranked 146, he asked for the same invitation and did not get it, and played neither the qualifying rounds nor the main draw.

In his farewell season he had already played the other three Majors: third round in Melbourne, first round at Wimbledon against Matteo Berrettini, four sets and four tie-breaks in four hours and twenty minutes. Gaël Monfils, the other man closing out his career this year, got his invitation straight away.