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THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — This time a year ago, British tennis player Dan Evans had a decision to make. He could play the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and partner two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray in his final event, or he could defend his Citi Open title in Washington D.C.. The former was the romantic option, but missing the latter would mean 500 points coming off his ranking.
That would send Evans tumbling more than 100 spots toward the bottom end of the world’s top 200, taking away his automatic entry to top-tier tennis events. He would have to drop down to the second-tier ATP Challenger Tour, which is not where any former world No. 21 wants to be, especially in their mid-30s.
This was no quandary for Evans. He chose the Olympics without hesitation and in so doing helped — and at times carried — Murray to two valedictory victories, both from multiple match points down. They didn’t win a medal, but the matches were unforgettable. It’s impossible to quantify a sporting experience like that.
It is much easier to quantify what they meant for Evans’ career — and it wasn’t pretty. After winning the longest match in U.S. Open history by defeating Karen Khachanov in the first round, he settled into his new reality. His first event after New York was the Nonthaburi Challenger in Thailand. In February, he bounced from Bahrain one week to Glasgow, Scotland the next. By the end of March, he was ranked outside the world’s top 200.
Evans knew what he was sacrificing to play with Murray, but the resultant destruction of his late career still hurt. At Wimbledon 12 months ago, he said that he’d consider retirement if he needed a wild card to enter.
Murray and Evans formed an entertaining double act at the Paris Olympics. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
After a year of struggle — and taking the wild card that he never wanted to need — Evans will face the 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic on Centre Court at Wimbledon, in a moment that feels as close to tennis karma as can exist. Not that Evans sees it that way. “I think if I believed in karma, I’d be in a bit of trouble,” he said in a news conference Tuesday, after beating Jay Clarke to set up the opportunity to face Djokovic.
It was a throwaway line, but one that is in keeping with Evans’ character through every stage of his career.
In his early days, Evans, who stands at 5 feet 9 inches (175cm) but is blessed with excellent hands and a devastating slice, looked as though he wasn’t going to make the most of his talent. The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) took away his funding for four months in 2008, when he was in a nightclub until 3 a.m. with his doubles partner before a junior match at Wimbledon. It cut his funding again in 2010 and 2012, because of question marks over his attitude and commitment. Evans then failed to turn up for a third-tier ITF event in 2015, and was fined £350.
When he finally started to put it together, reaching the Wimbledon and U.S. Open third rounds in 2016 and then the last 16 at the following year’s Australian Open, Evans imploded. He tested positive for cocaine in April 2017, a month after reaching a career-high ranking of No. 41, and was banned for a year. It could have been a precipice for his career, but Evans instead returned with a renewed focus.
After beating Denis Istomin from two sets down in a thrilling Davis Cup tie that September, Evans fought back tears and later said that he had feared he would never play again. The following April, Roger Federer invited “Danny” — as he called the Brit — to Switzerland to train with him. After beating Evans in four sets at the Australian Open a few months earlier, Federer had been so impressed with his opponent’s game, full of slice and forays to the net, that he described him as a ‘mirror’ of himself.
Evans climbed to that career-high rank of No. 21 in 2023, and even beat Thursday’s opponent Djokovic at the Monte Carlo Masters in 2021 in their only meeting to date. “I think when they do the stats, it has to be over, like, three matches to have a 100 percent record, so we’ll say I have a decent record,” Evans joked ahead of their meeting.
Evans celebrates after beating Novak Djokovic at the 2021 Monte Carlo Masters. (Valery Hache / AFP via Getty Images)
Born and raised in Birmingham, the son of a nurse and an electrician, Evans did not come from the British tennis heartlands of south-west London and Surrey.
“It’d be cool to see a guy coming up and his parents are painters and decorators,” he told the Daily Mail in 2023. “That would interest me where his career went. It doesn’t interest me seeing how a career goes of a guy with wealthy parents.”
Evans’ directness appears to come from wanting to raise standards — his own and those of his compatriots. Whenever he’s asked whether some good results for British players at Wimbledon signal a meaningful change, his answer is always the same. It’s not about doing it at Wimbledon for a match or two; it’s the other 50 weeks of the year that define a tennis player.
Those 50 weeks in the past year have been some of the roughest of Evans’ career, and he has been emotional during his recent grass-court matches. He cried during his quarterfinal run in Eastbourne, off the back of beating Frances Tiafoe at the HSBC Championships a week earlier, and did so again during his pre-Wimbledon press conference.
“It’s been awful basically,” Evans said Saturday of his year in the tennis wilderness.
“It’s not … It’s not the matches, it’s, uh … It’s when you feel like you let people down, that’s the tougher thing about it,” he said as the tears started to flow.
“I have no idea why I’m getting upset. But you go home to your wife and she travels. You see the kids — not my kids obviously — and (they ask), ‘Did you win?’ Just stupid things … you just feel a bit, you’re not used to losing. That’s probably more of the thing.
“I don’t worry about retirement, but it’s just different, isn’t it? So to start losing and stuff like that, it’s scary at the end of the day to know sometimes you’re not good enough and that’s not an easy thing in sport to not be good enough.”
Evans said Tuesday that the last year has been “equally as difficult” as when he was serving his drugs ban and feared his career was over, but that he would never go back on his decision to play the Olympic Games.
“The 500 points and winning Washington, that was a great experience. But, and I probably shouldn’t say this as I’m asking for a wild card, but the feeling of going out to play in the quarterfinals with Andy was a lot different to playing in Washington.
“That’s just a fact, and everybody’s behind you at the Olympics, so I never think about it like that. I’ve never woken and I thought, ‘Jeez, what have you done there?’ It’s always been a really proud moment. If I got a chance to do it again, I’d do it again.”
After getting into a rare ATP Tour-level event in Dubai in February, where Khachanov dispatched him in straight sets, Evans despaired at his form, saying that “it was a massive eye-opener” after being away from the elite. Ranked No. 154, Evans is a long way from where he was. But even if he doesn’t believe in karma, maybe the tennis gods, who have delivered him a shot at the greatest male player of all time at his home major, do.
“It’s what you play tennis for, isn’t it? To play the top players in the biggest tournaments,” Evans said.
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
(Top photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
