Dan Evans is one of Britain’s top tennis players, and has been for well over a decade now.
However, it has not always been easy for the 35-year-old, who has been forced to fight throughout his career for everything he’s achieved.
The last few months in particular have been really tough for him, struggling in Challengers events and routinely failing in qualifying.
That hardship has all been made worthwhile since the grass-court season has rolled around though, with impressive wins and solid runs in Queen’s and Eastbourne reinvigorating the veteran.
Handed a wild card for Wimbledon now too, it seems that this mini-renaissance means more to Dan Evans than we could have imagined.
Dan Evans’ emotional Wimbledon press conference
Chatting on The Tennis Podcast, as they sought to round up all the day’s media action, the three pundits honed in on a lesser-covered moment in Evans’ conference.
Whitaker introduced it by stating: ‘For me, it was my moment of the day, the Dan Evans press conference. It was incredibly moving. Incredibly.’
This sparked Law, who was in attendance, into action: ‘It was pretty run of the mill press conference. You know, He’s got a good relationship with the media, has Dan Evans, particularly the British media, many of whom we know him and he’s very relaxed with them, and there was a moment where The Sun’s Rob Moor walked in about two minutes late, and Dan just quietly looked at his watch and then looked at Rob and sort of, you know, took the mick.’
Whitaker then briefly interjected: ‘‘And then Rob made him cry later in the press conference!’
Law then expanded on that statement: ‘And then Rob asked the kind of penultimate question in the press conference about, is it Wimbledon that is kind of kept you going in the last few months, you know, and now you’ve had a bit of form and you started to talk about that, and within a few words, his eyes were filling with tears.
‘And he was clearly taken by surprise that he was getting emotional, and he says, “I don’t know why I’m so upset about this. I don’t know why I’m getting so upset. But I think that it’s just that, you know, I keep looking at my wife, who’s travelling with me, and I keep looking at my dad, and they’re all trying to support me, and they’re telling me you can still do it, and they believe in me, and I’m wondering whether they really do,” you know, it was kind of like that because you can tell that he’s had his own doubts, and I mean, he’s not been playing at a level that he’s used to.
‘And he says that just makes you think it’s hard. It’s hard to keep doing the training and wondering whether you’ve still got it. And I think the last couple of weeks where he’s actually had some wins and had some performances, have made him realise that it’s still there.
‘But it’s kept him up at night, you can tell. It’s really worried him and made him feel, I think, insecure, as a player and sort of he says, I’m not worried about retirement. It’s not that. I think it’s just facing up to kind of his tennis mortality.’
Dan Evans has predicted Jack Draper to enjoy a strong Wimbledon, outlining his belief in the future as well as himself.
Dan Evans could face Novak Djokovic in Wimbledon round two
Beating Frances Tiafoe and Tommy Paul over the last couple of weeks, Evans has scored some hugely impressive shock victories on the turf of late.
It therefore made him seem like a bit of a sneaky threat at Wimbledon to potentially upset another seed.
That was, until his draw emerged, revealing Novak Djokovic to be his projected round-two opponent.
Alas, he was not fazed, as Whitaker and Law claimed whilst reacting further to his press conference.
Instead, Evans was buoyed at the prospect, likely excited at the chance to face a star of the Serbian’s calibre after so many months of scrapping with other low-ranked players.
After all, he does boast a 1-0 winning record against the 24-time Grand Slam champion.
He admitted that it would be the perfect end to his grass-court season, although then doubled back to reinforce that it was not a goodbye. Hopefully not.
