“I think every kid who plays tennis has the dream to win a Grand Slam. I will go for the dream because my dream is to win it, not to be in the semi-final,” Lois Boisson said before her SF match against the eventual French Open champion, Coco Gauff. Although she failed to fulfill her dream at her home slam, her performance was quite extraordinary. Seeing her massive jump in the rankings from 361 to 65 after that run, Serena Williams’ ex-coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, predicted, “A Wimbledon wild card might come.” However, that didn’t happen! instead, seven British players out of a total of eight women’s tennis players were handed a wildcard. Several fans have already taken a jibe at Wimbledon for this decision, and now, tennis legend Andy Roddick also shared his perspective. 

Seeing all the buzz surrounding the wildcard at Wimbledon, Andy Roddick came up with an interesting statement. During an interview with Tennis Channel, he said, “There’s not going to be uniformity when you’re just basically picking favorites, right, and you have the access because you host an event. It’s imperfect, it will always be imperfect.”

Wildcards are often offered to players based on their previous performances at Wimbledon or in order to increase British participation in this historic event. Although Boisson is now ranked 67th in the world, the Wimbledon entry list cutoff was before her French Open run helped her lift her rankings. But despite that, some of the fans feel that she should’ve been handed a wildcard, especially after showcasing such an incredible performance in the previous major tournament.

Reflecting on this, Roddick further added, “We shouldn’t act shocked when it’s imperfect, you know. So I don’t know Boisson would be a great story. Good news for her, she’s going to get into every tournament for a year after Wimbledon. So you know, you’re mad about one tournament but you’re pumped about the other 30 you’re going to play.“

The two-time champion, Petra Kvitova, is the only non-British player to receive a wildcard at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships. Surely, she will be the one to watch out for, but regarding Boisson’s snub, there have already been a lot of speculations. However, one silver lining for the 22-year-old is that she’ll be able to enter the qualifying tournament to earn a spot in the Wimbledon main draw. Now, if we take a look at the rules, the wildcard has been awarded at Wimbledon since 1977, and it’s the committee of the All England Lawn Tennis Club that makes all these decisions.

Interestingly, Andy Murray’s mother, Judy Murray, rallied behind Wimbledon’s decision and tweeted, “Huge fan of this pathway. Allows young players to grow up + grow out in a student environment – education + team tennis = way more fun. Tough ask to go from juniors to success on 1st rungs of the pro tour + thrive. James (from Edinburgh) became v successful college coach.”

Nonetheless, on one side, the tennis fandom is not happy about Lois Boisson’s missed chance of getting a wildcard: on the other side, fans are cheering for players like Dan Evans who have recently gotten their wish fulfilled. 

Veteran Dan Evans receives a wildcard at Wimbledon

Besides Jack Draper, Jacob Feranley, Billy Harris, Cameron Norrie, and a few others, the 35-year-old Dan Evans, who is currently ranked 199 in the world, has also been handed a chance to take a shot in the main draw of his home slam. Evans has reached the third round of Wimbledon thrice (2016,2019,2021), but he has failed to go beyond that. 

However, recently, Evans stunned everyone by defeating America’s Frances Tiafoe by 7-5,6-2 in the R32 of the HSBC Championships. It was also his highest-ranked victory since September 2023, and after his win against Tiafoe, Dan Evans said, “I was emotional. It’s been a long time since I played that sort of level, and I was really excited to play here. But the closer it gets to the match, and you start to realize you need to perform, yeah, I was just really happy.“

Following that victory, Evans was also asked about whether he thinks he deserves a wildcard at Wimbledon, and in reply to that, he said, “Tennis is not just about the grass court season in Britain. It’s great that we’ve got an amazing set of events, but there are other tournaments, and I haven’t been good enough at those other tournaments, but I’ve still been professional, still train day in, day out, so I hope that’s enough to get me a wildcard. If not, I’ll go through quallies (qualifying). But I’m pretty confident I have a shot at getting a wildcard.” His wish indeed, came true, but unfortunately for Boisson it didn’t pan out in the way she wished.