Stan Wawrinka will open his Geneva Open campaign against Italian lucky loser Raul Brancaccio on Monday at 6 pm after Alejandro Tabilo canceled his participation on Sunday. The opening-round match at the Parc des Eaux-Vives now gives the 125th-ranked Swiss veteran a different opponent than the one first listed for the draw.
Brancaccio, ranked ATP 240, slipped into the main draw despite losing in the second round of qualifying to Frenchman Clément Tabur 6:0, 2:6, 2:6. The Italian’s route into the field was unusual, but not unfamiliar: he entered as a lucky loser after falling in qualifying.
The change matters because Tabilo, the world number 35, would have brought a very different profile to the match. The Chilean reached the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Rio de Janeiro on clay in February and had been the original designated opponent for Wawrinka before withdrawing. Brancaccio, by contrast, arrives with far less experience at this level. He has played only one main-draw ATP match, in Parma in May 2021, though he did win the Challenger tournament in Menorca last month.
Wawrinka is the only Swiss player left in the main draw at the Parc des Eaux-Vives, which leaves the home crowd with one local name to follow in the tournament’s starting round. Kilian Feldbausch, who had received a wild card for qualifying, lost 3:6, 2:6 to American Nihesh Basavareddy in the second round of qualifying, removing another Swiss presence from the event before the main draw began.
That is the friction in Geneva: the draw still carries the feel of a home event, but only one Swiss player remains in it. Wawrinka now faces an opponent who was not supposed to be there, and Brancaccio gets a main-draw chance that came even after a qualifying defeat.
