Jay Clarke has revealed he got a Wimbledon wildcard after contacting the All England Club to explain his withdrawal from an explosive lawsuit against the tennis governing bodies. The British No.6 was on Friday drawn to face fellow wildcard Dan Evans in the first round with the winner set to face seven-time champion Novak Djokovic.
The Serbian superstar is a co-founder of the Professional Tennis Players’ Association which lodged the lawsuits in March, describing tennis as a “cartel”. Wimbledon and the other Grand Slams were branded as “co-conspirators” with Clarke a plaintiff in the London lawsuit. He withdrew his support a week later and was earlier this month awarded the wildcard worth at least £66,000. And Clarke, 26, said: “My voice in it was just to talk about things like balls and stuff like that. I was never comfortable being the face of it. I think what they’re doing is a good thing. I think it’s important, I think all credit to them.
“But, yeah, it’s just not, not something that I wanted to be a part of. Did I know exactly what I was putting my name to? No, no, to be honest, not really Did I find some of the language in the lawsuit surprising? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very surprising, to be honest.
“Obviously, I think everyone was surprised by that. I think it kind of caught us all off guard. Obviously, we’re tennis players. We’re not lawyers, so yeah, like I said, it’s just not something that I was comfortable doing. I contacted Wimbledon just to kind of let them know my position, what my involvement was, and stuff like that.
“I love being here. I’ve played Wimbledon a number of times, you know, trying to be a member here and stuff like that as well. I know a lot of the people inside. I don’t think it’s necessarily a big thing.
“Like I say, I just needed to kind of say where I stood on it. And, like, I say, I just think it was much bigger than I anticipated initially.”
World No.199 Clarke, who has suffered from a serious wrist injury, has insisted change is required in tennis to allow lower-ranked players to make a proper living. “I think this year, I’m coming up to 20 tournaments, or something like that, and the last four have been in the UK,” said the Derby-born pro.
”But apart from that, I did nine weeks in India. It’s a lot of travel. You know, you’re not doing it alone. I had a coach with me every week. So after actually finishing the ninth week in India, I did second round of all the Challengers, won two of the futures, two finals, and after paying flights and stuff, I was like, £3,000.
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”And the second half of the trip, I won 18 matches and lost two. So yeah, it is really tough. You need to obviously choose where you play, especially at my age, where sponsors aren’t exactly handing over money, let’s say, unless that was my ranking at 21, 22 it’s very different.
”So yeah, it is tough.There’ll be things that for sure I’d love to add into my team, like full time physio and things like this, especially as I get older. But at the minute, it’s just not possible with what I make. Because obviously tennis is one thing, but I still have to live outside of that as well.”