Maximilian Marterer was practicing at the U.S. Open courts on Saturday, Aug. 24, even though the German wasn’t scheduled to play in the main draw. The 100th-ranked men’s player in the world had lost in the final round of the qualifying tournament two days earlier, but he stuck around in New York in case he received a specific text message.
While practicing, he got it—the message told him that he was a “lucky loser.”
After completion of the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, in which lower-ranked players who didn’t automatically qualify for the main draw play for the last few spots, the four highest-ranked players who lost in the final round are arranged in a randomly selected order. If anyone withdraws from the main event, the first player in the order, officially called a “lucky loser,” is entered into the bracket. Marterer’s text informed him that he got the spot vacated by Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori, who withdrew due to injury.
Marterer was beaten by Alexander Zverev in four sets on Monday, but thanks to his random selection, he earned $100,000 for losing in the first round of the main draw, nearly double the $52,000 that players receive for losing in the third round of qualifying. That $48,000 bonus accounts for nearly 10% of Marterer’s prize money to date this year and roughly 1.6% of the 29-year-old’s career earnings.
“The Grand Slams are the places where, as a player not ranked super high, you get most of the money during the year,” Marterer said. “It’s obviously something that gives the guys a little safety in order to pay their bills for the coaches, for the flights.”
For Kamilla Rakhimova, who lost in straight sets to women’s No. 1 Iga Świątek of Poland on Tuesday as a lucky loser, this wasn’t her first rodeo. Amazingly, it was the 22-year-old’s third time in four years being a lucky loser at the U.S. Open (although only once did she actually leapfrog a higher-ranked player due to the randomized order).
This time, she found out the news when her coach looked at the main draw and saw Rakhimova’s name at the very top next to Świątek’s. The Russian was more excited than any player has ever been to see her name next to the top-ranked player in a draw. “When we realized, I was like, ‘Oh hell no, I got so lucky!’” Rakhimova said.
Rakhimova, even after her first-round match, was unsure how much prize money she actually had won, saying she was focused more on the experience than the money. Her financials this year are similar to Marterer’s; of her $450,000 in 2024 on-court earnings, $100,000 have come from this year’s U.S. Open.
Most tennis tournaments have lucky losers, and at smaller tournaments they sometimes advance far. Last year, Sara Sorribes Tormo won the WTA Tennis in the Land event in Cleveland, Ohio, after losing in the second round of qualifiers, and Kwon Soon-woo did the same at the 2023 ATP Adelaide International 2. In the 2023 Madrid Open, Jan-Lennard Struff became the first lucky loser to reach the finals of an ATP Masters 1000 event.
At those tournaments, however, the lucky loser is always the highest-ranked eligible player, which is not the case in the majors. That’s because at 2005 Wimbledon, American Justin Gimelstob planned to withdraw from the final round of the qualifying tournament with a back injury, but after realizing that he was going to be a lucky loser if anyone withdrew from the main draw, he played one game of his qualifying match before retiring in order to maintain his eligibility for the following week. Thus, in 2006, the lucky loser policy was changed for the majors to ensure integrity in the final round of qualifying tournaments.
The result is that a sizable paycheck for an athlete comes down to randomness, and that paycheck has gotten larger in recent years as the U.S. Open has increased the prize money for earlier rounds. In 2014, losers in the third round of qualifying earned $13,400 while main draw entrants were guaranteed a minimum of $35,800, meaning a lucky loser would gain an additional $22,400. In 2024, the difference is more than twice that number.
All four majors have more than doubled their first-round prizes in the past decade and also proportionally increased the share of the total purse that is allocated to first-round losers. “It’s great how prize money got raised over the past years,” Marterer said.
One way to get that cash is by being awarded a wild card, but that’s unlikely unless you’re Australian, French, British or American. The most common way, obviously, is to win matches. But the most fun way is to be a loser and get a little lucky.
