Tallon Griekspoor holds a record nobody on the ATP Challenger Tour has come close to: eight titles in a single season. He turned that 2021 run into three tour-level titles, a career-high of No. 21 and three wins over Alexander Zverev, and in 2024 he was one of the two Dutch singles players who took the Netherlands to its first Davis Cup final. This week in Brussels he is in the quarterfinals of the European Open.

From Haarlem to Belgium

Griekspoor was born on 2 July 1996 in Haarlem. He is right-handed with a two-handed backhand and turned professional in 2015. Tennis ran in the family: his mother, Monique, is a tennis instructor, and his older twin brothers, Scott and Kevin, both played professionally, reaching No. 205 and No. 655 respectively. At 17 he moved to Belgium to train with Kristof Vliegen, a former Top 30 player. The ATP lists his favourite surface as clay and his idol as Andy Murray.

The Challenger record

In 2021 Griekspoor won eight ATP Challenger Tour titles, the most by any player in a season; no one else has won more than six. He went 8-0 in finals and 42-7 overall, and at one stage won 25 matches in a row across five straight titles.

Titles and finals

His first tour-level title came in Pune in January 2023, where he came from a set down to beat Benjamin Bonzi 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. In June that year he won at home on the grass of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, beating Jordan Thompson 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3 in two hours, 35 minutes, and became the fourth Dutchman to win the event. He reached No. 21 in the PIF ATP Rankings on 6 November 2023.

The third title came on grass again, in Mallorca in June 2025, with a 7-5, 7-6 (3) win over Corentin Moutet. He has also lost three finals: Washington in 2023 to Dan Evans, 7-5, 6-3; Marrakech in 2025 to Luciano Darderi, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4); and Dubai in February 2026, where he gave Daniil Medvedev a walkover after hurting his left hamstring in his semifinal win over Andrey Rublev.

The big wins

His first Top 10 win came in the Washington semifinals in 2023, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 over top seed Taylor Fritz. At Indian Wells in March 2025 he beat world No. 2 Zverev 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) on his sixth match point, his first win over a Top 5 player at the 19th attempt. He went on to become the first Dutch Masters 1000 quarterfinalist since Robin Haase in 2018.

In Shanghai in October 2025 he led defending champion Jannik Sinner, then No. 2, 6-7 (3), 7-5, 3-2 when Sinner retired with cramp in his right thigh. In February 2026 he beat world No. 10 Alexander Bublik 6-3, 7-6 (4) in Dubai on the way to that final.

The most recent came in Montreal in August 2026, when Griekspoor, ranked No. 69, beat top seed and world No. 3 Zverev 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-4. It was his third win over the German, who leads their head-to-head 9-3. It also came in the middle of a hard year. “I have had a very tough season, which is not easy,” Griekspoor said. “I have been very close to throwing the towel a couple of times.” He credited his team: “Without the guys in the box, I probably would have lost this one.”

The 2024 Davis Cup final

The Netherlands’ run at the 2024 Final 8 in Malaga began against Spain in the week of Rafael Nadal’s farewell. Griekspoor lost the second singles to Carlos Alcaraz, 7-6 (0), 6-3, but the Dutch won the deciding doubles. In the semifinals he clinched the tie against Germany by beating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-4, sending the Netherlands to their first final in 104 years of competing.

“We have been talking about this [moment] for two or three years,” Griekspoor said. “We came here all the time with unbelievably tough draws, but we believed in ourselves so much. We always felt like this was possible.” Italy won the final; Sinner beat Griekspoor 7-6 (2), 6-2 in the second rubber.

Grand Slam best results

• Australian Open: third round (2023, 2024)
• Roland Garros: fourth round (2025), retired against Zverev at 6-4, 3-0 down with an abdominal injury picked up in the warm-up
• US Open: third round (2024)

Season Snapshot (as of 23 October 2026)

Ranking. No. 60 in the PIF ATP Rankings of 19 October 2026. Career high No. 21 (6 November 2023).

2026 so far. 13-21 before this week, according to the ATP. Best results: the Dubai final (walkover) and the win over Zverev in Montreal. He played for the Netherlands in their World Group I tie against Colombia in September.

This week. At the European Open in Brussels he beat wild card Max Schoenhaus 7-6 (3), 6-7 (5), 7-5 and eighth seed Mariano Navone 7-6 (4), 7-5, and plays second seed Jiri Lehecka in the quarterfinals. The European Open guide has the draw format and past champions.

This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.

Stan Wawrinka has one tournament left after this week. The 41-year-old Swiss, who won three Grand Slam singles titles and beat the reigning world No. 1 in each of those finals, ends his career at the Swiss Indoors in Basel, where the tournament will hold a tribute to him on the evening of Monday 26 October.

He arrived in Lyon this week on a wild card and beat Martin Landaluce, 21 years his junior, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) in 2 hours, 46 minutes, on his fifth match point. It was his 12th tour-level win since turning 40, the most by any player, ahead of Ivo Karlovic’s nine and Jimmy Connors’s eight. On court afterwards he said the win was what pleased him most, after a year of losing several very tight matches.

Early Years

Wawrinka began playing tennis at eight. His father, Wolfram, is German and his mother, Isabelle, is Swiss; his parents work on an organic farm that employs and supports people with disabilities. He turned professional in 2002 and had right knee surgery in February 2007.

His first major title came in doubles. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics he and Roger Federer won the men’s doubles gold medal. Four years later he carried the Swiss flag at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. For how the Olympic event is run, see our Olympic tennis explainer.

The 2014 Breakthrough

Wawrinka’s career turned in Melbourne in January 2014. He beat Novak Djokovic in a five-set classic on the way and then Rafael Nadal, the world No. 1, who was injured during the final, to win the Australian Open. He reached his career-high ranking of No. 3 that year.

The same year he beat Federer in the final at Monte-Carlo for his only Masters 1000 title, and he and Federer helped Switzerland win its first and only Davis Cup title.

Paris and New York

Djokovic was world No. 1 for Wawrinka’s next two major finals, and he lost both. Wawrinka beat him in the 2015 Roland Garros final and again in the 2016 US Open final. The one-handed backhand did much of the damage in both, and it is the shot the Swiss Indoors chose to single out when it announced his farewell.

Those three titles were part of a run of 11 straight finals won from 2014 to 2016, and he finished each of those three seasons at No. 4. He has five wins over the world No. 1 at Grand Slams in all. He is also one of three men to have beaten Djokovic, Federer, Andy Murray and Nadal at Grand Slams; the others are Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Swiss television viewers named him Swiss of the Year in 2013, and he was elected Swiss Sportsman of the Year in 2015. On tour he is known as Stan the Man and Stanimal.

Surgeries and the Long Way Back

Wawrinka played 50 straight Grand Slams before his body stopped him. He won the title in Geneva in 2017, his 16th and last, then had two operations on his left knee in August that year, missed the US Open and ended his season. In 2021 he had two operations on his left foot, in March and June.

He kept playing through his late 30s, but he did not reach another Grand Slam quarterfinal after the 2020 Australian Open.

The Farewell Season

Wawrinka announced his retirement plan in December 2025. “Every book needs an ending. It’s time to write the final chapter of my career as a professional tennis player. 2026 will be my last year on tour,” he wrote on social media.

He started it at the United Cup, where Switzerland reached the final. At the Australian Open he played on a wild card, beat Laslo Djere and then Arthur Gea 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3) in 4 hours, 33 minutes. That made him, at 40, the oldest man to reach the third round of a Grand Slam since Ken Rosewall, at 44, in Melbourne in 1978. It was also the 58th five-set match of his career, the most of any player in the Open Era. He lost to Taylor Fritz in four sets in the third round.

“Knowing that it’s my last Australian Open, my last year, it’s really special,” Wawrinka said in Melbourne.

In May the Swiss Indoors confirmed Basel as the end point. “He would have liked to keep playing forever. But Basel marks the end of the line for three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka as he says goodbye to the game,” the tournament said. That announcement was followed by the schedule: a tribute show at 6 p.m. on Monday 26 October, a first-round match in the evening session on Tuesday 27 October and, if he wins, a second-round match on Thursday 29 October.

Grand Slam Best Results

• Australian Open: Champion (2014)
• Roland Garros: Champion (2015)
• Wimbledon: Quarterfinals (2014, 2015)
• US Open: Champion (2016)

Season Snapshot (as of 22 October 2026)

• Ranking: No. 140
• Career tour-level wins: 590, after the Lyon first round
• 2026 highlights: United Cup final with Switzerland; Australian Open third round as a wild card; Lyon second round as a wild card, beating Martin Landaluce
• Next: Lyon second round against top seed Flavio Cobolli; then the Swiss Indoors in Basel, 24 October to 1 November, his final tournament

This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.

David Goffin plays his last tournament at home. The 35-year-old Belgian, a former world No. 7 and the first man from his country to break into the top 10, has a main-draw wild card for the BNP Paribas Fortis European Open at Brussels Expo, 19 to 25 October, and retires when his last match there is over.

He announced in March that 2026 would be his final season. “Some decisions stay with you for a long time. I’ve given everything for this sport, and tennis has given me more than I could ever have imagined,” he said in the video that carried the news. “And that’s why this has been one of the hardest decisions of my life.”

He goes into that week with six ATP Tour titles, four Grand Slam quarter-finals, a run to the 2017 Nitto ATP Finals championship match and a 357-275 tour-level record as it stood when he announced his retirement. This profile follows the career from a lucky-loser week in Paris to the farewell in Brussels.

Early years

Goffin began playing tennis at six with his father, Michel, a coach at the Barchon club in Liège. Roger Federer was his idol growing up. On tour he became known as “La Goff”.

Paris 2012: the lucky loser

Goffin arrived at Roland Garros in 2012 ranked No. 109, aged 21, and lost in the final round of qualifying. When Gael Monfils withdrew on the eve of the tournament, he went into the main draw as a lucky loser. He beat 23rd seed Radek Stepanek and Arnaud Clement, both in five sets, then Lukasz Kubot 7-6(4), 7-5, 6-1. That made him the first lucky loser to reach the fourth round of a major since his compatriot Dick Norman at Wimbledon in 1995.

His opponent in the last 16 was Federer. Goffin took the first set, matched him rally for rally through the second and led 5-4, 30-15 on Federer’s serve, two points from a two-set lead. Federer held, levelled the match and won 5-7, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4. “Then playing Roger was the cherry on the cake,” Goffin said afterwards.

Wrist surgery and a first title

The next step took longer. Goffin had season-ending surgery on his left wrist on 9 September 2013. In 2014 he won his first ATP Tour title, on the clay of Kitzbühel, and his fellow players voted him ATP Comeback Player of the Year. From 2014 to 2020 he finished every season inside the top 25, seven years in a row. In 2015 he helped lead Belgium to the Davis Cup final.

2016 and 2017: the top 10 and the Finals

His first Grand Slam quarter-final came at Roland Garros in 2016, where Dominic Thiem beat him. At the 2017 Australian Open he turned that around, beating Thiem 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-2, 6-2 in the fourth round on Rod Laver Arena, in ambient temperatures above 35C, to become the first Belgian man to reach the quarter-finals in Melbourne. “I kept fighting, that was definitely key winning the second-set tiebreaker where I made some good returns,” he said. Grigor Dimitrov ended the run 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.

2017 became the best season of his career. He won a career-high 59 matches, took the biggest title of his career at the ATP 500 event in Tokyo and finished the year at a career-high No. 7. At the Nitto ATP Finals he beat world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and No. 2 Federer on the way to the championship match, which he lost. He was the sixth and last player to beat Nadal and Federer at the same event, after Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin del Potro, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and David Nalbandian. By 2019 it was still his only win over Federer in 10 meetings. He finished the season by helping lead Belgium to a second Davis Cup final.

Cincinnati, a knee injury and Montpellier

In 2019 he became the first Belgian to reach an ATP Masters 1000 final, in Cincinnati. At Wimbledon that summer he reached the quarter-finals, where Djokovic beat him.

The titles had stopped after Tokyo. He ended the drought in February 2021 in Montpellier, coming from a set down to beat top seed Roberto Bautista Agut 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 with 13 aces. “It’s never easy to win tournaments. This is my fifth and every tournament I’ve won was special,” he said. Later that year a left knee injury ended his season after the US Open and kept him off the tour until January 2022.

2022: Marrakech and Wimbledon again

He came back to win his sixth title, on the clay in Marrakech, where he also earned his 300th tour-level win, against Pablo Andujar in the second round. At Wimbledon, ranked No. 58, he reached his fourth Grand Slam quarter-final. “It means a lot. For me, it’s almost like back-to-back quarter-finals. The last time I played before this year was the quarter-final against Novak on Centre Court in 2019,” he said.

Cameron Norrie beat him 3-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 for a place in the semi-finals. Goffin hit more winners, 49 to 38, and won more points, 151 to 145. In the autumn he beat world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz in the first round in Astana, the third win of his career over a reigning No. 1.

The last seasons

At the 2025 Miami Open he beat Alcaraz again, and he went into his final season leading their head-to-head 2-1. In May, Roland Garros gave him a wild card into qualifying for his last visit. He beat Tseng Chun-Hsin 6-3, 6-1, back in the arena where he had played Federer 14 years earlier. “It was something special to play again on that court because it’s a court that in 2012 I played my first match against Roger Federer and it was a big boost in my career,” he said.

Brussels is the last stop. Alongside the singles wild card, he has a doubles wild card with fellow Belgian Raphaël Collignon. In singles he opens against a qualifier, and the winner meets fifth seed Alex Michelsen or another qualifier in the second round. The singles final is on Sunday 25 October.

Grand Slam best results

• Australian Open: quarter-final (2017)
• Roland Garros: quarter-final (2016)
• Wimbledon: quarter-final (2019, 2022)
• US Open: fourth round (2017, 2018, 2019) [UNVERIFIED: years read from the ATP 2019 US Open media notes entry “2017-19 4th Round”; 2019 confirmed by Reuters, 2017 and 2018 not separately confirmed]

Season Snapshot (as of 17 October 2026)

• Ranking: No. 390 when the European Open named its field on 22 September
• Retirement: announced on 27 March that 2026 is his final season
• Roland Garros 2026: won his first qualifying match as a wild card, 6-3, 6-1 over Tseng Chun-Hsin
• Final tournament: BNP Paribas Fortis European Open, Brussels, 19–25 October; singles main-draw wild card and a doubles wild card with Raphaël Collignon
• Career: six ATP Tour titles; 357-275 at tour level when he announced his retirement

This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.

Related reading

The European Open Guide covers the Brussels event’s format, points and past champions. The ATP Finals and WTA Finals guide explains the season-ending event where Goffin had his best week.