British Tennis Star Dan Evans to Retire After Wimbledon, Criticises British Tennis Coaching

Dan Evans, the British tennis player who achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 21 in 2023, has announced his retirement from professional tennis after this year’s grass-court season, culminating at Wimbledon. The 36-year-old, known for his outspoken nature, has used his farewell tour to voice criticism of the state of British tennis coaching.

Evans, who has been sidelined for much of the past 10 months due to injury, expressed disappointment with the decision of the Queen’s Club tournament not to award him a wild card. "It would have been a classy gesture to give me a wild card, but obviously that was lacking on this occasion," Evans told British newspapers. The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), which owns and operates the event, declined to comment.

After a series of recent losses, including a defeat to then-world No. 1447 Daniel Jade in French Open qualifying and failure to qualify for the Ilkley Challenger and HSBC Championships, Evans was awarded a doubles wild card for Wimbledon by the All England Club on Tuesday. He will play doubles with 20-year-old British player Henry Searle, whom he has coached informally during his rehabilitation. Evans has not received a singles wild card for the tournament.

In an exclusive interview with the Tennis Podcast published Wednesday, Evans elaborated on the issues he sees in British tennis. He argued that more British players should be in the world’s top 100, noting that currently only Cameron Norrie among men and Emma Raducanu, Sonay Kartal, Katie Boulter, and Fran Jones among women hold that ranking. "Where a lot of them (British players) should be is (top) 100," Evans said. "I think the coaching in this country now for a few years has been not going in the right direction."

Evans, who was part of the British Davis Cup-winning team in 2015, believes coaching methods have become overly complicated. "I didn't look at one piece of data in my whole career. Never wore a heart-rate monitor, neither wore any of it, and I did alright," he said, adding that compared to his junior coaches, "the coaches are not of that caliber anymore in those positions, dare I say it, but that's just a fact."

Reflecting on his own career, which included a one-year ban for testing positive for cocaine in 2017 and having his LTA funding removed at age 18 for a discipline breach, Evans expressed a desire to move into coaching after retirement. "I just think, there's things I've learned along the way which could help," he said, backing himself to add value to British tennis.