British failures anger Evans

DAN EVANS has criticised the state of British tennis and believes Emma Raducanu’s success has papered over the cracks. There will only be three British players in the singles main draws at the French Open starting tomorrow and, for the first time since 2008, no women. Of the 10 British players in qualifying, none made the final round, while 2021 US Open champion Raducanu joined Andy Murray in withdrawing having undergone surgery on both her wrists and one ankle. Speaking ahead of his first-round clash with Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis, Evans said: ‘They’ve been lucky that they had a grand slam champion and she’s a very good tennis player but the rankings don’t lie, do they? I think the grass last year really helped paper over some cracks as well.’ An LTA spokesperson said: ‘Despite this week’s results, we are making longerterm progress — but there is more work to do before we consistently have the numbers we’d like to see across all levels.’