British tennis star may have played their last Wimbledon after a tough wildcard denial before retiring
British tennis star Dan Evans might have played his last Wimbledon singles after missing out on a wildcard spot. The 36-year-old said last week that he plans to retire after this summer’s Wimbledon and hoped to get one of the eight wildcards for the singles event.
Wildcards are special entries given to players who don’t have a high enough world ranking to qualify automatically, but the tournament committee lets them in. A famous example is Goran Ivanisevic, who won Wimbledon in 2001 as a wildcard.
But Evans, who is ranked 244th in the world, wasn’t given a guaranteed place this time. Instead, the two remaining wildcards went to British players Harry Wendelken and Felix Gill on Wednesday. Evans got a wildcard last year, and he’s a former British No. 1 who has reached the Wimbledon third round three times before.
He was also part of the Great Britain team that won the Davis Cup in 2015 and played doubles with Andy Murray at the Paris Olympics in 2021. Evans can still try to get into Wimbledon by qualifying, which means winning three matches at a tournament in Roehampton next week for one of 16 spots. He did get a wildcard in men’s doubles with Henry Searle, so he’ll have one more chance to play at Wimbledon, but it might be his last time playing there alone.
The wildcard places went to Wendelken and Gill, who are ranked 224 and 222, respectively. Evans wasn’t the only well-known player to miss out on a singles wildcard; last year’s finalist Nick Kyrgios also didn’t get one. Kyrgios won a match in Stuttgart recently but had to pull out of the next tournament because of a knee injury, hurting his chances. He’s only played seven singles matches since October 2022 because of injuries.
Besides British players, Wimbledon gave singles wildcards to Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov. Six homegrown players were also given spots. One women’s singles wildcard is still to be announced, with rumors it could go to tennis legend Serena Williams after her recent comeback.
Men’s singles wildcards: Grigor Dimitrov, Jacob Fearnley, Arthur Fery, Jack Pinnington Jones, Toby Samuel, Stan Wawrinka, Harry Wendelken, Felix Gill.
Women’s singles wildcards: Maja Chwalinska, Harriet Dart, Alicia Dudeney, Hannah Klugman, Mika Stojsavljevic, Katie Swan, Mimi Xu, TBC.