Denied a chance to compete in a final U.S. Open, former champion Stan Wawrinka bid an emotional farewell to New York on Tuesday.

Wawrinka, who announced last December that he is retiring at the end of the season, was not granted one of the eight wild cards given out. It is the only Grand Slam event not to have invited the 41-year-old from Switzerland.

“When I first arrived in New York from a small farming village in Switzerland, everything felt too big. The city. The noise. The energy .The crowds. The lights.
But year after year New York slowly became one of my favorite places in the world,” he wrote on Instagram.

His career-high No. 3 world ranking coincided with his first Grand Slam victory, which came in January 2014 when he defeated Rafael Nadal to win the Australian Open.

He also triumphed in Grand Slam events the next two years, defeating Novak Djokovic in both the 2015 French Open and the 2016 U.S. Open. He and Roger Federer won the gold medal in doubles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Switzerland.

Wawrinka has 16 ATP Tour singles titles and career earnings of $38.6 million. It likely would have been more had his contemporaries not been named Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray.

“This city challenged me. It pushed me. It brought something out of me that few places ever could,” he continued on Instagram. I experienced some of the strongest emotions of my career here. The battles, the late nights, the incredible atmosphere, the love from the crowd…memories that will stay with me forever…

“Winning the US Open in the city that never sleeps will forever be one of the greatest moments of my life.”

–Field Level Media