lucky loser

A lucky loser is a sports competitor (player or team) who loses a match in a knockout tournament or loses in qualifying, but who then enters the main draw, usually when another competitor withdraws during the tournament because of illness, injury, or other reasons. The lucky loser then re-enters the competition, normally in place of the withdrawn competitor. In the event of a lucky loser's re-entry to a competition, it usually occurs before all competitors in the main draw have started their first match in the tournament. Lucky losers as tennis tournament winners and finalists It is rare for a lucky loser to win an ATP or WTA Tour 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, Marco Cecchinato at the Hungarian Open in 2018, and Kwon Soon-Woo at the 2023 Adelaide International 2. In total, ten men have done it since 1978.