Katie Boulter hits back at Dan Evans' comments on state of British tennis

Katie Boulter has pushed back at criticism of the state of British tennis, saying “we’re in a very good place” despite there being no Britons in the women’s world top 100.

Last month marked the first time in 15 years that British women completely dropped out of the top 100, and not a single one made the French Open main draw either – the first time it had happened at a major since 2009. For comparison, European nations of a similar size like France and Italy have four and six female players in the top 100 respectively.

It prompted British men’s No 2 Dan Evans – who is ranked 25th – to criticise the Lawn Tennis Association’s distribution of funding and say that Emma Raducanu’s remarkable US Open victory had helped “paper over the cracks”.

But British No 3 Boulter, who is ranked 125th, disagreed with the criticism. Speaking after her 6-1, 6-2 first-round win over Olivia Gadecki at the Surbiton Trophy, Boulter said it was important to focus on the positives, including five out of six British women winning their matches at the ITF 100k event on Tuesday.

”I personally think we’re in a very good place,” Boulter said. “You saw that today, and I hope you all write about it. I think we have to start looking at the positives. We can all say we haven’t got this, we haven’t got that. But we’re all working really hard and I hope we can continue focusing on the positives.”

Evans, who beat Australia’s James McCabe 6-4, 6-4 in Surbiton, suggested Boulter may not be in a position to criticise the Lawn Tennis Association due to receiving hefty grants through their Pro Scholarship Programme in previous years, but said “the rankings don’t lie”.

He added: “I think it will be wildcards all-round maybe for [the British women at] Wimbledon – maybe not for Jodie Burrage – but that’s not good. If that’s a good spot we’re going to struggle aren’t we?”

Heather Watson’s ranking will drop to at least 193 after losing to Maddison Inglis in a third-set tiebreak in Surbiton. But she would argue “the rankings don’t really mean much”, especially for those  like Boulter and herself who did well at Wimbledon last year for no ranking reward, due to the repercussions of the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.

She added: “Maybe people are saying this because Emma Raducanu is not playing [due to injury] at the moment, but when she won the US Open British women’s tennis was amazing. I don’t think you can pin it all on one person. We’ve got a lot of good players in the women’s game but I would say a lot of them are injured, out for spells, so their ranking doesn’t really reflect their ability.

Bright light Lacy gets biggest win to date

Tuesday’s biggest positive takeaway was Britain’s Isabelle Lacy, 16, who recorded her first top 100 win over American Madison Brengle.

Lacy, who is ranked 852nd in the world, has never even faced anyone inside the top 300, but she came through against the former world No 35 with a gutsy 7-6, 5-7 6-1 victory.

She attends Surbiton High School, less than a mile away, but her study plans may be hampered if she goes on a deep run.

Lacy has an exciting summer ahead regardless, as she also secured a wild card to play Wimbledon qualifying for the first time next month, due to winning the U18 LTA Junior National Championships in April.