What Does Walkover Mean in Tennis? Understanding Tournament Walkovers

You’ve probably seen a tournament scoreboard suddenly jump ahead—one player advancing without hitting a single ball. That’s a walkover in tennis. It's not just a fancy way of saying someone gave up; there are clear rules about when a walkover happens and what it really means for both players.

A walkover is when a match is awarded to one player because the other can’t play, often due to injury, illness, or personal reasons. No rackets are swung, no points are played, but the winner still goes through to the next round. This isn’t the same as retiring mid-match—retirement happens after play has started, while a walkover is declared before anyone even steps on court.

Walkovers can turn a whole tournament upside down. Suddenly, a favorite could be out, or an underdog gets another shot without lifting a finger. If you’re tracking your favorite player’s progress, walkovers can feel unfair or confusing, but the rules are there to keep things as straightforward as possible.

• Walkover: The Basics
• Why Walkovers Happen
• Impact on Players and Tournaments
• Myths and FAQs About Walkovers

Walkover: The Basics

First things first: a walkover in tennis is basically when one player moves to the next round because the other can’t play before the match even starts. This could be due to sudden injury, illness, personal emergencies, or sometimes scheduling mistakes by the player. The point is—no ball gets served, and the winner moves on by default.

This is different from “retirement,” which only comes into play if someone starts a match but can’t finish it. With a walkover, everything is done before anyone hits a shot. In official tennis tournaments, this rule is written into the books, so everyone knows what happens if someone can’t make it to the court on time or at all.

If you’re wondering how common walkovers are, on the ATP and WTA Tours, you’ll typically see a handful every season, especially in the bigger tournaments where there’s more pressure and more matches to play back-to-back.

• Walkover only applies if the withdrawal happens before play starts.
• Official score is usually recorded as a win for the player advancing, but they don’t get ranking points for a played match—they just move forward.
• Spectators who bought tickets usually don’t get refunds, since this is part of sport.

One important thing: a walkover is not held against the player who withdraws. Their official record won’t count a loss for that match, but the advancing player gets the chance to keep climbing in the draw. It’s just the tournament reality, and it’s built into how modern tennis works.

Why Walkovers Happen

Walkovers show up in tennis tournaments a lot more than you might think. There are some pretty straightforward reasons behind them, and most come down to stuff that can’t be helped. The most common reason is injury. If a player tweaks a muscle or wakes up feeling too sick to compete, they may have to skip the match altogether. When that happens before a single point is played, the opponent gets a walkover.

Another common reason is personal emergencies—think of a family problem or a situation back home that requires immediate attention. Administrative issues also pop up now and then. Sometimes, a player misses their match call time, forgets important paperwork, or there’s a mix-up with entry forms. If they can’t sort things out in time, the match is awarded to the other player as a walkover. It’s all written clearly in the official tennis rulebooks for both the ATP and WTA tours.

• Injury or illness: The top reason. For example, at the 2022 US Open, three first-round matches ended in walkovers due to last-minute injuries reported just hours before play.
• Personal emergencies: Occasionally, a player needs to drop out for family reasons or unexpected events outside tennis.
• Travel or visa trouble: It’s not rare, especially in international tournaments, for a player to get stuck in another country because of paperwork issues or travel delays. They can’t show up, so a walkover is given.
• Disqualification before play: If a player breaks a rule before they even step on court or fails a pre-match drug test, you guessed it—a walkover is awarded.

Here’s a quick breakdown of common walkover causes at Grand Slam events in recent years:

What’s clear is that no player actually wants to win or lose by walkover. It’s almost always about circumstances no one can control. For fans, it can be a head-scratcher, so knowing these reasons helps make sense of those unexpected shifts in the draw.

Impact on Players and Tournaments

A walkover in tennis changes the game fast, for both players and the tournament atmosphere. If you’re the player who gets a free pass, it sounds great at first. You don’t have to spend energy on a match, and you’re straight into the next round—no sweat, literally. In Grand Slam tournaments, this can be a big deal, because the physical grind gets pretty real as the rounds go on.

But there’s a catch. Skipping a match doesn’t always help. Some players need match rhythm. If you get a walkover, you might sit out for an extra day, miss out on match play, and lose your flow—especially if your next opponent just battled through a tough match and is fully dialed in.

For the player who can’t play, the consequences are harsher. They get no ranking points for the round they missed, no prize money for future rounds, and they lose their shot at the title. In ATP and WTA events, only the player who moves forward, not the one who withdraws, gets the ranking benefits.

Tournaments themselves often scramble to shift schedules when a walkover hits. Imagine a packed stadium and one match is suddenly off the board. Fans miss out on action, broadcasters juggle programming, and there’s just a weird gap in the tournament vibe. Organizers try to reshuffle the schedule or push up later matches, but sometimes there’s just no fix.

There’s even a side effect for lucky losers—players who lost in the final round of qualifying but get bumped into the main draw if someone pulls out before their first match. This creates real opportunities for underdogs to make a name for themselves after a sudden walkover.

Myths and FAQs About Walkovers

Let’s clear up all the confusion around walkover results in tennis. Even regular fans mess this up, so don’t feel bad if you’ve wondered about it yourself.

First up: a walkover is NOT the same as winning by default because your opponent was disqualified for breaking the rules. A default comes from bad behavior or code violations, but a walkover usually happens because the opponent can’t even show up—due to injury, illness, or maybe even missing a flight. The only drama here is off-court.

Now, what about ranking points and prize money? Here’s the part that throws off a lot of people. If you get a walkover, you move on to the next round just like normal. You get ranking points and prize money for the round you reached, not for a match you never played. But your win/loss record reflects a win—so it actually helps your stats.

• Can a player reject a walkover and insist on playing? Nope. If one player can’t compete, the rules don’t give an option. The healthy player moves on.
• Do walkovers happen often? Actually, they’re rare at the top level. In Grand Slam tournaments over the past five years, less than 1% of matches ended in walkovers, according to ATP and WTA tour stats.
• Does the winner have an unfair advantage next round? Sometimes, because they rest while their next opponent had to play. But sometimes the gap in rhythm can also throw them off their game.
• Is a walkover embarrassing? Not really—if you’re injured or sick, stepping aside is often the smart move.

Here’s a quick comparison to help make sense of how walkovers differ from other non-competition results:

*Depends on when in the match the retirement happens.

If you’re at a tournament and suddenly notice a player advanced on the scoreboard without any highlights, now you know exactly what happened—and why. Walkovers are built into tennis to make sure things run smoothly when unexpected stuff gets in the way. No drama, just rules keeping tournaments fair for everyone.