What Is a Walkover in Tennis? Rules and Examples

Scroll through a Grand Slam draw the morning after first round and you’ll sometimes spot it: a seed knocked out with no score line, just “W/O” next to their name. Nobody hit a ball. Their opponent withdrew before the match started, and the draw simply moves on without a contest ever taking place.

Walkover vs Retirement: The Key Distinction

The two terms get mixed up constantly, but the line between them is simple:

Term	When It Occurs	Abbreviation
Walkover	Before the match starts (no play at all)	W/O
Retirement	During the match (after play has begun)	Ret.
Default	Player disqualified mid-match (code violation, etc.)	Def.

Even a player who warms up on court and then pulls out before the coin toss still counts as a walkover under most tour regulations. What matters is whether any official play happened, not how close the players got to starting.

Why Do Walkovers Happen?

A few recurring reasons show up on withdrawal forms:

• Injury. A strain or lingering fatigue from an earlier match that rules out playing again so soon.
• Illness. A stomach bug, fever, or respiratory infection that makes competing impossible.
• Personal or family emergency. Rare, but it happens.
• Scheduling strain. At Challenger events and smaller tournaments, a player short on recovery time might withdraw rather than risk a longer injury. Grand Slams control scheduling tightly enough that this is less of a factor there.

Ranking Points and Prize Money

A walkover still earns ranking points, the same amount the player would have collected for winning that round outright. Prize money is handled differently by different tournaments: some pay the withdrawing player a share of the round’s purse when there’s a documented medical reason, while others cut off payment at whatever the player already earned in earlier rounds.

The player who receives the walkover collects the full prize money for that round regardless.

Notable Examples of Walkovers

Walkovers show up at every level of the sport, but they draw the most attention at Grand Slams. A top seed pulling out before a second-round match reshapes the rest of the draw — a qualifier or lucky loser who might have faced a brutal second-round test instead gets a clear run into round three.

The most common storyline behind a high-profile walkover: a player grinds through pain to finish one match, then simply can’t recover in time to take the court again.

Effect on Statistics

None of the usual match numbers get logged for a walkover:

• Aces served
• Double faults
• Winners and unforced errors
• Break points won or saved
• Games and sets played

The tournament’s stat sheets treat it as a match that never happened. The win-loss record for rankings purposes is the exception — that one does reflect it.

Walkovers in Doubles

Doubles works the same way. If either player in a pair withdraws, the opposing pair gets a walkover, ranking points go out, and no statistics are generated for the match.

Is a Walkover a “Real” Win?

On paper, yes — it counts as an advancement and a win in the record books. Players themselves tend to be less thrilled about it. Skipping a round means missing the rhythm that match play builds, and that can catch up with a player in the next round when they’re facing someone who’s already had a real workout. It’s common to hear pros say they’d rather have played, if only to stay sharp.