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Andy Murray and Dan Evans will play doubles together at the French Open after receiving a wildcard into the tournament at Roland Garros.
14 pairs across the men’s and women’s draw have received wildcards. The other 13 are all-French duos. Murray and Evans have entered in a bid to warm up for the Olympics doubles event, which will be played on the Roland Garros clay in June. They are expected to represent Great Britain, though they may not play together, with doubles specialists Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski, who have collectively won nine Grand Slam doubles titles, also in contention.
Salisbury will qualify by virtue of being ranked inside the doubles top 10 at world No 5; Skupski is currently world No 10, so is in a good position but a poor run at the French Open could spell trouble.
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Murray, meanwhile, is the only male tennis player in history to have won two Olympic gold medals, in the men’s singles in 2012 and 2016.
The i has reported that this is the first time in 23 years that a men’s pair with no French representation has received a doubles wildcard to the French Open.
How significant is this?
Analysis by Charlie Eccleshare
Murray and Evans stand out on the wild cards list because they are the only non-French pair — on either the men’s or women’s side. For the singles event, the French Open limited their wild cards to home players, or ones from the U.S. and Australia, as part of their reciprocal arrangements with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and Tennis Australia. This meant that even two-time finalist Dominic Thiem, in his final few months on the tour, wasn’t given one. Instead he had to go through qualifying, and was knocked out on Wednesday afternoon by Finland’s Otto Virtanen in straight sets.
Thiem was then presented with a gift by tournament director Amelie Mauresmo in a special presentation on Court Suzanne Lenglen. There also appeared to be no hard feelings from Thiem about the decision, as he said: “It was such a great farewell from Roland Garros so thank you to everyone who came who gave me such a great support, such a great atmosphere.
“There’s a special relationship with this tournament.”
As for Murray, the 2016 Roland Garros finalist will compete in both the singles and doubles in what is expected to be his final year on the tour. It’s perhaps a little surprising that he was given the wild card after the French Tennis Federation (FFT) decided against giving Thiem, or the three other Grand-Slam champions who were eligible (Caroline Wozniacki, Simona Halep and Emma Raducanu), one for the singles. That said, Murray, is a three-time major champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist, so it’s not necessarily a direct comparison.
The FFT explained last week that for singles, “priority is given to French players, outside of the agreements with Tennis Australia and USTA”.
The Athletic has contacted the FFT to see if there is any further information on its selection policy for doubles wild cards.
(Fabrice Coffrini/AFP; Julian Finney via Getty Images)
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Courtesy : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5512660/2024/05/22/french-open-wildcards-andy-murray-and-dan-evans-to-play-doubles-at-roland-garros/