ROLAND GARROS. France. Men´s draw
The 41-year-old Swiss will hang up his racquet at the end of the current season went down in just over three hours on court under a blazing sun 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Dutch lucky loser De Jong.
After the match, Wawrinka was presented with a glass case containing a section of a clay court and two video tributes to his career were displayed on big screens around the stadium — the latter featuring messages directed to Wawrinka from former champions Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, among other luminaries of the sport.
“It’s hard, I don’t want to say goodbye to you here,” Wawrinka said, before also thanking the people who work behind the scenes at the tournament.
“Unfortunately, it’s my last match at Roland Garros, but thank you.”
“Me too, I love you,” he added in response to cries from the spectators of ‘we love you, Stan’.
“Thanks to all your support, I wanted to go on as long as possible, to 41 years of age, to continue living moments like this.”