Stan Wawrinka retires after Swiss Indoors loss to Jiri Lehecka

Stan Wawrinka played his final professional match on home soil, retiring after a straight-sets defeat to Jiri Lehecka in the opening round of the Swiss Indoors in Basel. It was the farewell the 40-year-old had long hinted at, delivered in front of the crowd that watched him grow from a promising junior into one of the sport's most feared shotmakers.

Wawrinka leaves the game as a three-time Grand Slam champion - the Australian Open in 2014, Roland Garros in 2015 and the US Open in 2016 - a run that made him one of only a handful of men to break the Big Three's stranglehold on the biggest trophies of that era. His one-handed backhand, struck with a violence few could match, became the signature of his game.

The everyman who gatecrashed the greats

BBC Sport's tribute described him as "the everyman who gatecrashed the greats," a reference to how a player often overshadowed by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic still found a way to beat all three of them on the sport's grandest stages. Wawrinka won all three of his major finals against the very best, beating Djokovic in each.

The loss to Lehecka, 28, came as little surprise given Wawrinka's injuries and a farewell season spent largely saying goodbye to the tournaments that defined him. But the reception in Basel - the city where he was born and where his home event is held - was never about the scoreline. It was a send-off for one of Swiss tennis's own, played out in the venue where he declared it would all come to an end.

His departure closes a chapter that began nearly two decades ago, and follows a wider changing of the guard across the men's tour as a new generation of champions takes over.