British Davis Cup winner and “bad boy” of British Tennis Dan Evans is to return to the tennis tour. The Former British #2 served a one year ban for testing positive for cocaine. The recreational drug is non performance-enhancing but is still banned by WADA and all anti-doping establishments.
Dan Evans has been offered assistance by the Lawn Tennis Association on his return, but this is under very strict conditions. For example, the 27-year-old will be supporting the LTA anti-doping education programme, aimed at helping upcoming players to avoid making the same mistakes. The Brit also has agreed to ongoing monitoring, and this is not open to negotiation. Any hint of a similar offence and the support will be withdrawn. The LTA is confident that Evans is committed to getting his career back on track and are supporting him through this period.
Wildcards
Unlike the return of Maria Sharapova, who was banned for taking the performance enhancing drug Melodium, the return of Evans is lower key. The Brit has been given a wild card into the qualification rounds of the new Challenger event in Glasgow. Evans will have to work back up the rankings and back onto the main tour. On his schedule are ITF Future events, including in Tunisia, where the Brit will have to work on getting his ranking back up.
Evans is entitled to wild cards at events run by the LTA and they are likely to pick low key events after Glasgow to offer to the Brit. This will be on the basis of wanting to show that this kind of offence is taken extremely seriously. The 27-year-old is unlikely to be offered a wild card to Wimbledon qualifying this year. The Grand Slam event did not offer Sharapova a main draw one last year (despite other main tour events doing so). The Russian said in press that she would refuse one if offered. Sharapova was due to enter qualifying before withdrawing due to injury.
The Brit has a career high ranking of #41 and it will take a very long time to get back to anywhere near that ranking. He will be entering ITF Futures events without a ranking. Therefore, the Brit will have to go through qualifying for every event he wishes to play.
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