Lucky loser (tennis)

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 reason. The lucky loser then enters the main draw, normally in place of the withdrawn player.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.

It is rare for a lucky loser to win an Association of Tennis Professionals 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 and Rajeev Ram in 2009 in Newport. In total, seven men and one woman have done it from 1978 through 2015.Andrea Jaeger, 1980 Las Vegas, is the only lucky loser to win a WTA title. Three men's doubles teams have won a tournament as lucky losers.

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, and Marcel Granollers who lost against David Ferrer in 2010 Valencia. 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.

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