The 34-year-old Swiss has won three major titles -- and they all came against members of the Big 3.
Guess what? He's still here.
On Sunday night in New York, Wawrinka struck again, stunning the world No. 1 and defending US Open champion Djokovic 6-4, 7-5, 2-1 to advance to the quarterfinals. It was a rematch of the 2016 US Open final, which Wawrinka won in four sets.
Djokovic, who has been battling a left shoulder injury, elected to retire in the third set when Wawrinka was leading by a break, eliciting boos from the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd.
With the loss, the Serb, who won the Australian Open and Wimbledon earlier this year for his 15th and 16th titles, failed to get closer to Nadal's 18 titles and Federer's 20 on the all-time men's list.
Wawrinka underwent knee surgery in 2017 and has been working his way back up the rankings since. Currently he's ranked 24th and is the No. 23 seed in the US Open. His career high was No. 3, back in 2014.
Wawrinka's record against the No. 1 player in the world, at 5-21, doesn't initially look impressive. But after an 0-15 start, he's gone 5-6 since, including defeating Andy Murray at the 2017 French Open semifinals; Djokovic at the 2015 French Open final and 2016 US Open final; and against Nadal at the 2014 Australian Open final.
His head-to-head record against Djokovic is now 6-19.
Wawrinka will face No. 5 Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals.
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