Jodie Burrage and Katie Boulter make historical past weeks after Dan Evans’ indignant rant
Jodie Burrage and Katie Boulter have etched their names into the historical past books by attaining a 45-year first on the Nottingham Open simply weeks after Dan Evans blasted the present state of British tennis as a part of an indignant rant. Burrage and Boulter will face off within the ladies’s remaining at Nottingham Tennis Centre on Sunday, whereas Andy Murray may very well be poised to succeed in the lads’s remaining if he manages to beat Nuno Borges within the final 4.
Burrage booked her place within the ladies’s remaining with a powerful straight-sets victory over Alize Cornet on Saturday after wins over Magdalena Frech, Magda Linette and Tereza Martincova earlier within the event. Boulter, in the meantime, managed to see off the problem posed by Heather Watson of their semi-final assembly to arrange a decisive conflict with Burrage for the highest honours.
The match will see two British gamers do battle in a WTA remaining for the primary time since 1977, when Sue Barker defeated Virginia Wade in San Francisco. It comes lower than a month after Evans identified an obvious decline in the usual of British tennis over time and insisted that the present home setup does little to assist the game thrive on UK shores.
He additionally claimed that the emergence of Emma Raducanu, who sensationally gained the US Open again in 2021, has masked the problems going through the sport in Britain over the previous couple of years when quizzed on the difficulty at Roland Garros.
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Evans advised reporters: “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? Men’s or women’s, the rankings don’t lie. Men’s, not many of us playing qualys, not many 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 an enormous, huge behavior of sending individuals to varsity now. I do not suppose that massively helps. It’ll be fascinating. I believe the grass final 12 months actually helped paper over some cracks as effectively. After the grass, there will probably be a little bit of soul-searching I think about, after their holidays.”
Murray also commented on the state of British tennis after his win over Dominic Stricker on Friday but was not nearly as critical as Evans, with the Scot hailing the women’s contingent doing the country proud in Nottingham this week.
“A few weeks in the past we have been listening to that British tennis wasn’t doing effectively,” he said. “Things change rather a lot on a week-to-week foundation. You simply need all the gamers to succeed in their potential and ensure everybody’s working exhausting.
“Not everyone is going to win Wimbledon and Grand Slams, things like that, but you just want to make sure everyone is making the most of this amazing opportunity to play tennis for a living. This week has obviously been brilliant. The women have done extremely well this week and hopefully that continues through the year but, yeah, it should be a fun weekend for British tennis fans.”
Meanwhile, there was additionally loads to shout about from a British perspective within the ladies’s doubles event in Nottingham on Saturday, with Watson and Harriet Dart transferring into the ultimate after profitable a tense battle towards compatriots Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls.