Dan Evans thinks Emma Raducanu’s 2021 US Open win “papered over the cracks” in British tennis and made the reality of British tennis look better than it really is. This year, there will be just three British singles players at the French Open – all three in the men’s event – Evans,Cameron Norrieand Jack Draper.
In the French Open women’s event, there will be no British female players participating. For the first time since the 2009 US Open, Great Britain has no female players participating in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament.
Raducanu made the main draw cut for the French Open but the recent surgeries ruled her out of the tournament.
“Has her success papered over the cracks? Yeah. We’ve been lucky, or they’ve been lucky that they had a Grand Slam champion and she was a very good tennis player but the rankings don’t lie, do they? Men’s or women’s, the rankings don’t lie.
Men, not many of us playing qualies, not many in the 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. I think the grass last year really helped paper over some cracks as well. There were some good results but if you look at the players who did pretty good on the grass last year, who were wildcards etc, rankings don’t lie.
After the grass, there will be a bit of soul-searching I imagine, after their holidays and after the grass, obviously,” Evans said, per Express-Sport. Currently, Great Britain has four male players ranked inside the top-100.
On the WTA Tour, Great Britain was left without a single top-100 player after Raducanu recently exited the top-100 club.
