Dan Evans has criticised the state of British tennis and believes Emma Raducanu’s success has papered over the cracks.
There will only be three British players in the singles main draws at the French Open starting on Sunday and, for the first time since 2008, no women.
Of the 10 British players in qualifying, none made the final round, while 2021 US Open champion Raducanu joined Andy Murray in withdrawing having undergone surgery on both her wrists and one ankle.
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Speaking ahead of his first-round clash with Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis, Evans said: “They’ve been lucky that they had a grand slam champion and she’s a very good tennis player but the rankings don’t lie, do they?
“Men’s or women’s, the rankings don’t lie. Men’s, not many of us playing qualis, not many main draw. I don’t want to sound like a broken record. But there’s way further to go than just the top players. It’s from the bottom up.
“We’re in a massive, massive habit of sending people to college now. I don’t think that massively helps. It’ll be interesting. I think the grass last year really helped paper over some cracks as well. After the grass, there will be a bit of soul-searching I imagine, after their holidays.”
Evans has been a long-time critic of the domestic set-up and recently criticised some of his fellow British players for not competing enough and being willing to grind out life on the tour.
A late bloomer after serving a drugs ban and admitting to enjoying the party lifestyle too much, Evans knows well both the pitfalls and what it takes to achieve success.
The world number 24 said: “You’ve got to work hard. I know what it’s like to not work hard and what you get from that and I know what it’s like to work hard and get decent rewards.
“I’m not sitting here saying I know the answers. I have a fair idea of the answers and I would do it very differently to what’s happening now I think. There’s enough people playing junior tennis. We just don’t help them.”
Evans reserved his strongest ire for former Lawn Tennis Association performance director Simon Timson – now occupying the same role with Manchester City – who was the architect of a performance strategy that heavily funds a small number of players.
“It’s just heartbreaking that a guy next door to you is getting 70 grand or something, but you’re better than him,” said Evans. “But a guy with these stats is telling you, ‘No, no, he’s better’.
“You can look who has been on PSP (Pro Scholarship Programme, the highest level of support). It’s hardly flourishing reading is it? And that’s what I think we need to (do) – get a bigger pool and just pool it all in and get going. It’s simple maths. But Simon Timson, he was the mastermind of it all.
“I couldn’t give a s**t about it. Simon Timson sat next to me and told me, ‘In all due respect to James Ward and Heather Watson, I put you three in the same bracket. You are close to finishing your career.’ And I said, ‘Thanks man’. That was that meeting.
“And I seem to have done all right since that meeting. He sent me to a psychologist, that was about it. I told him that it was a stepping stone, the job, and that’s exactly what it was. He wouldn’t be there in three years and he wasn’t. He didn’t know what he was watching.”
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Evans is certainly an example of what can be achieved with hard work and the right attitude, and he will hope to continue his improvement on clay when he takes on Kokkinakis on Sunday.
The British number two has lost his last three matches but reached the semi-finals of clay tournaments in Marrakech and Barcelona.
He joked of his relationship with the surface: “We had a good week at the start, and then we’ve not been on talking terms really, sleeping in separate beds.
“No, it’s been good. I feel comfortable. I’ve been playing good. It’s probably helped having an Argentinian coach, little intricacies, which the British probably don’t know because they’re not so brought up on the clay.”
Boris Becker ‘working hard with the authorities’ to return to Wimbledon in 2025
Boris Becker says he is “working hard with the authorities” to return to the UK and Wimbledon in 2025.
The three-time Wimbledon men’s singles champion was deported from the UK in December 2022 after serving eight months of a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for hiding £2.5m of assets and loans in a bankruptcy fraud case.
Becker cannot return to the UK until October 2024 at the earliest following his deportation, but the 56-year-old German plans to return to the tournament he says is “in my DNA” as soon as possible.
“Wimbledon has been my favourite tournament as a player, coach and commentator,” Becker said at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid.
“It’s unique, you can’t compare it.
“I lived in Wimbledon a long time so I’m working hard with the authorities to have all the applications ready to be back for next year. We’re working on 2025.
“It’s a part of my life. It’s in my DNA, you can’t deny that.”
Asked if he would be back in the Wimbledon commentary box, Becker replied: “I hope so.”
Becker has not been involved in tennis since stepping down as Holger Rune’s head coach at the start of February.
The pair spent less than four months together, but in that time the 20-year-old qualified for the ATP finals in Italy.
::The 25th Laureus World Sports Awards take place on Monday evening in Madrid. To find out more, and follow the ceremony, visit www.laureus.com
Former Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza announces retirement
Former Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza has announced her retirement from tennis.
The 30-year-old Spaniard won the French Open in 2016 before lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish on Centre Court the following summer but she had not played a competitive match since January 2023.
At a press conference where she was announced as a Laureus Ambassador, Muguruza said: “If 25 years ago, when I started hitting my first tennis balls, someone had told me that I would become a professional tennis player, that I would fulfil my dream of winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon, that I would become number one in the world and win the WTA Finals, I would have thought this person was crazy.
View this post on Instagram“Tennis has given me a lot in this first part of my life. It has been a fantastic journey in which I have experienced unique situations. I have travelled all over the world and experienced many different cultures.
“I am tremendously grateful to all the people who have helped and accompanied me throughout this chapter, because without them I would not have been able to get here.
“I have grown and matured in a very different way than what can be considered normal, and now I am ready to start a new chapter in my life, which will surely be linked in some way to tennis and sports.
“I hope that my collaboration with Laureus Sport for Good is the beginning of many more projects in which I can dedicate myself and help young people through sport.”
Muguruza turned professional in 2012 and reached her first grand slam final three years later at Wimbledon, where she was beaten by Serena Williams.
But the big-hitting Spaniard took revenge in 2016 when she stunned Williams in the final at Roland Garros, and a year later she beat Venus Williams to add the Wimbledon trophy to her collection.
She climbed to the top of the rankings in September 2017, where she stayed for four weeks, but consistency was not Muguruza’s strong point and she slipped down the standings before a resurgence in 2020.
Muguruza reached her fourth grand slam final at the Australian Open, losing to American Sofia Kenin, and she returned to the world’s top three at the end of 2021 after winning the WTA Finals for the first time.
But the next season saw her plummet back down the rankings and her retirement comes as no surprise given her long hiatus from the sport.
Emma Raducanu’s run at Stuttgart Open ended by world number one Iga Swiatek
Emma Raducanu’s progress in the Stuttgart Open was halted in straight sets by world number one Iga Swiatek.
The Polish four-time grand slam champion, in her 100th week on top of the ATP world rankings, prevailed 7-6 (2) 6-3 to set up a semi-final showdown with Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina.
It was, however, an encouraging quarter-final performance from Raducanu, who has slipped to 303 in the world rankings after a torrid 2023.
Raducanu came in to the contest on a high after winning four matches in a row for the first time since her US Open title in 2021 and raised confidence levels were reflected in the opening exchanges.
Several booming returns from the 21-year-old Briton turned a 0-40 deficit into an immediate break of serve, but Swiatek levelled after edging a second game that featured seven deuces.
That see-saw battle set the tone for a marathon 70-minute opening set which produced plenty of high-quality ground strokes from both sides of the net.
The match went with serve from that point, with Raducanu superbly holding her nerve at 5-4 and 6-5 down to force the first set to a tie-break.
Swiatek completely dominated the tie-break though, winning the first four points before closing it out 7-2.
Raducanu was quickly in trouble again in the second set, falling 2-0 behind and covered in clay after losing her footing on the baseline.
She continued to fight and fended off break points in her next two service games to stay in the match.
But Swiatek kept up the pressure to finally end Raducanu’s resistance to move in to the last four.
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