BARKER’S BLAST
Sue slams Wimbledon for refusing Brit bad boy Evans a wildcard
Wimbledon opted to take the moral high ground yesterday when they ignored the recent form of dan evans and refused him any sort of wildcard into this year’s Championships.
but former French open champion Sue barker was among those who questioned why the year-long ban for his social use of cocaine should be held against him, when his suspension expired in April.
The influential bbC presenter said: ‘i feel like dan has served his time and should be entitled to a Wimbledon wildcard, at least into qualifying. He has put his hands up and apologised for what happened and now he is back and playing good grass-court tennis.
‘Personally, he is one of my favourite players to watch and i know there are plenty of other people who would love to see him play at Wimbledon. i would be interested to know what the thinking of the wildcard committee was because i just don’t understand this one.’
Sources at the All england Club confirmed the reasons for the refusal were not purely tennis related. That much was clear, given the complete superiority of evans’ recent record compared to the two main draw wildcard recipients among british men, Jay Clarke and liam broady.
evans has won 10 matches on grass this season, but neither Clarke nor broady has troubled the scorers.
There are echoes of last year’s situation involving maria Sharapova. Senior figures at Wimbledon have always insisted that she would not have been granted a wildcard on her return from her meldonium ban. in the event she was injured and missed the grass- court season anyway.
evans will now try to reach SW19 via a britsonly tournament that begins today, with 16 players contesting a prize of two entries into Wimbledon qualifying.
Should he fight all the way to the main draw there is a minimum payday of £39,000 (for first-round losers).
The whole episode emphasises the disconnect between britain’s governing body, the lawn Tennis Association, and their biggest tournament. The lTA have seen fit to help evans with wildcards into the tournaments they run, but Wimbledon, a private members’ club, have not.
in the other Grand Slam nations of France, Australia and the US the governing bodies run their biggest event, so such decisions are made in harmony.
Another example of how british tennis acts on a less joined-up basis was the wildcard handed to world no 129 naomi broady. This despite her steadfast refusal to represent Great britain in the Fed Cup due to a feud with past lTA administrations going back 11 years.
Six british women in all were given wildcards, rewarding the promising younger group of players who have made solid progress this season.
in this instance the All england Club seemed to have heeded last week’s call from Heather Watson, who demanded that british players should have priority over those from overseas.
on that basis the requests of two who have tumbled down the rankings — Sabine lisicki and eugenie bouchard, finalists in 2013 and 2014 respectively — were rejected.
There is also nothing, as yet, for now world no 330 laura Robson, 10 years after she won the junior title. She is restricted by hip issues to playing doubles, and the decision not to accommodate her in the women’s doubles looks harsh as she is Gb’s fourth highest ranked player in that discipline.
Andy murray was recovering yesterday from his encouraging first match back against nick Kyrgios, discussing with his team how he would approach Wimbledon.
He had a warning last night from fellow three-times Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka about the process of returning. Wawrinka missed the second part of last season after knee surgery.
‘i think he was for sure moving, playing well, knowing he’s been away for a year,’ said Wawrinka, who lost in the second round of the Fever-Tree Championships to American Sam Querrey yesterday.
‘but if i take my experience, what’s important is how he’s going to be in the next match, how it’s going to feel. my first match was in Australia and two days after i was not feeling pain but my body was completely off. i lost 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 but i couldn’t really do anything, i felt dead. ‘That’s mentally tough, so you need to learn from it, you need to adapt and accept it and
be patient.’