by Andrew Hipp
Thirty-six-year-old former British number one Daniel “Dan” Evans has decided to hang up his rackets after over twenty years playing professional tennis. Evans has been a staple of British tennis alongside other British tennis legends like the Murray brothers. Evans has contributed to British men’s tennis by playing in the Davis Cup, United Cup, and ATP Cup. In 2024 Evans decided to forgo his title defence at the Citi DC Open to instead play the Olympics in singles and, more notably, doubles with Andy Murray in his final career event in which they ended up making it to the quarter-finals.
Recently Evans has been playing only in Grand Slam qualifying and failing to qualify for both majors this year. With Wimbledon coming up and Evans’ ranking not being high enough to enter directly, he would have needed either to receive a wildcard or to win three rounds of qualifying. With Wimbledon being Evans’ final event of his career, fans were expecting Evans to receive main draw entry. However, he did not receive one. All eight men’s singles wildcards have been announced, and Evans was not named, instead being passed over for other British players such as Arthur Fery and Jacob Fearnley or tennis legends such as Grigor Dimitrov and Stan Wawrinka.
This shock did not come out of the blue, though. Evans was also denied main draw entry into the HSBC Championships by the Lawn Tennis Association. Evans later said that he was “perplexed.“
Evans, however, was granted entry into the men’s doubles with young British player Henry Searle, giving Evans the chance to end his career with a fair send-off. But since he was not given a wildcard for the singles, he might end up playing his final match at a venue other than Wimbledon, because Wimbledon holds its qualifying matches at a different location. Instead, he may play his final singles tennis match at Roehampton in the Wimbledon qualifiers.
Some people believe Evans did not receive a wildcard due to his lack of tournament play, whilst others believe this act would be the capstone of the former Davis Cup champion’s career.
Ultimately, the decision on whether or not to give Dan Evans a wildcard was up to the All England Club.
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