In a closed-loop wireless communication system (200), a codeword retransmission scheme is provided which allows retransmission of a single codeword using a higher order transmission rank, which may or may not be the same as the higher order transmission rank used to originally transmit the codeword. When one of a plurality of codewords (CW1, CW2) being transmitted over two codeword pipes to a receiver (201.i) fails the transmission, codeword retransmission is enabled by duplicating the failed codeword at the base station (210) and then retransmitting the duplicated codewords over both codeword pipes using the same transmission layers or “rank” as the original transmission.