Lucky loser
Who is a Lucky loser in tennis?
How to understand the tennis expression “Lucky loser”?
How does a Lucky loser enter the main draw?
A lucky loser is a sports player who loses a match in the qualifying round of a knockout tournament, but who then enters the main draw when another player withdraws after the tournament has started because of illness, injury, or other reasons. The lucky loser then enters the main draw, normally in place of the withdrawn player. This can only happen before all players in the main draw have started their first match in the tournament.
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It is rare for a lucky loser to win an ATP or WTA tournament; Heinz Gunthardt did it in 1978 (at Springfield), Bill Scanlon in 1978 (at Maui), Francisco Clavet in 1990 in Hilversum, Christian Miniussi in 1991 in São Paulo, Sergiy Stakhovsky in 2008 in Zagreb, Rajeev Ram in 2009 in Newport, Andrey Rublev in 2017 in Umag, Leonardo Mayer in the following week in 2017 in Hamburg and Marco Cecchinato at the Hungarian Open in 2018.
In March 1980, Kay McDaniel won a WTA minor league title in Atlanta as a lucky loser, but the WTA recognizes Andrea Jaeger, September 1980 Las Vegas, as the first lucky loser to win a WTA title (though no tournament sources have been found to back up the WTA claim). Olga Danilović won a WTA event as a lucky loser in Moscow in 2018, where some sources have claimed she is the first women to win a main tour WTA singles title as a lucky loser. In October 2019, Coco Gauff defeated Jeļena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 at the Upper Austria Ladies Linz tournament in Austria at the age of 15 to become the third woman to accomplish the feat. Three men’s doubles teams have won a tournament as lucky losers.
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Lucky losers who have reached the finals of a tennis tournament and lost include Andreas Haider-Maurer, who reached the final in 2010 Vienna before losing to top-seeded Jürgen Melzer, Marcel Granollers who lost against David Ferrer in 2010 Valencia, and Pablo Cuevas, beaten in the 2019 Estoril Open final by Stefanos Tsitsipas. Cuevas had lost to Salvatore Caruso in the second round of qualifying, but beat him when they met again in the first round proper. On the women’s side, Melinda Czink reached the final of the 2005 Canberra International but lost to Ana Ivanovic, who had also defeated Czink in the final round of qualifying. In 2012, Coco Vandeweghe finished runner-up to Serena Williams at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford.
In tennis, the rule for choosing a player to enter the main draw as a lucky loser is as follows: from all players eliminated in the final round of qualifying, the highest-ranked player in the ATP or WTA rankings is the first one to enter the draw, followed by the second highest-ranked player and so on (if more players withdrew before the start of the tournament). On rare occasions that there are more late withdrawals than losers in the last qualifying rounds or players eligible for lucky losers are not available, a player who lost in the penultimate round of qualifying may enter as lucky loser.
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Prior to the 2005 Wimbledon Championships, American player Justin Gimelstob faced George Bastl from Switzerland in the final qualification round. Gimelstob, who was the highest-ranked player remaining in the qualifying tournament, aggravated a chronic back complaint during his second qualification match against Vladimir Voltchkov. Gimelstob planned to withdraw before the match with Bastl, and informed his opponent of his intent.
However, officials suggested that Gimelstob play at least one game, as it was almost certain someone would withdraw from the main draw before the tournament started, giving Gimelstob a good chance of getting a berth as a lucky loser (as well as giving him time for his back to recover). Gimelstob did indeed enter the main draw as a lucky loser after the withdrawal of Andre Agassi, reaching the third round, where he lost to Lleyton Hewitt.
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While Gimelstob’s behavior was not generally considered unethical, it raised concerns by pointing out that any player in a similar position would have little incentive to play a competitive match. For example, a high-ranking player paired against a lower-ranked friend might deliberately lose the match to help his friend gain entry to the tournament, if the first player had already clinched a lucky loser spot. The possibility of bribery was also a concern.
Shortly thereafter, a new policy was introduced in Grand Slam tournaments. Since 2006, a random draw has been held to determine the order in which players enter the Main Draw rather than using rankings. This element of uncertainty helps to ensure that final-round qualifying matches remain competitive. However, this rule does not apply in all other tournaments.