During an interview with French, L'Equipe Wawrinka explained why he still wants to continue playing tennis despite multiple injury issues in recent years.
Wawrinka, who has been ranked as high as third in the ATP rankings,
hasn’t played a competitive match since his first-round loss to Lloyd
Harris at the Doha Open almost 12 months ago. Since then, he has
undergone two surgeries on his left foot. The first occurred shortly
after his match in Doha and then he had a second in June. Those
operations followed two left knee procedures he underwent in August
2017.
Despite all of that he is not thinking about stopping aiming for a Monte Carlo return:
"The goal is to return to clay. I’m
coming back to finish my career, but that doesn’t necessarily mean
within six months. I’m not preparing just to come back this year and say
goodbye at the same time.’I still have this flame in me that makes me love tennis, love playing it, love training, love the toughness.”
Wawrinka is currently ranked 273rd in the world and he will have a tough time returning to the Tour. Despite all of that he has a dream of winning at least one more event before calling it quits. It's been like that since his initial knee injury in 2017:
Since my knee injury almost five years ago, my dream has been to win an ATP tournament before quitting."
Asked when he could see that happening and he admitted to being inspired to play at the 2024 Olympics in Paris with the Roland Garros venue hosting the tennis event.