Dan Evans breaks down in tears in Wimbledon press conference after heartbreaking comment

Dan Evans broke down in tears before his 10th Wimbledon appearance as the world No.170 admitted: 'You feel like you've let people down". The Davis Cup star, 35, went five months without winning an ATP Tour-level match before the start of the grass court season and slipped out of the top 200.

Evans has since beaten top-20 players Frances Tiafoe and Tommy Paul and will face Jay Clarke in a Battle of Britain in the first round here. The Brummie has no plans to retire and insists he never lacked motivation to "play tennis". But the British No.5 admitted: "I struggled a bit to do the other things. I did wonder: 'Why are you doing this?' It's been awful basically, I played poor, but it's going in a better direction.

It's not the matches, it's, geez, it's when you feel like you've let people down. That's the tougher thing about it. I have no idea why I'm getting upset. You go home to your wife (Aleah) and she travels, just stupid things like you see the kids - not my kids, obviously - and: 'Did you win?" 'No'. You're not used to losing, that's probably more of the thing.

"I don't worry about retirement but it's just different isn't it. To start losing, it's scary at the end of the day to know sometimes you're not good enough. It's not an easy thing in sport to not be good enough. I don't know why I'm so emotional about it.

"I've spoken that much about it with other people. I guess I'm pretty proud of the last four or five months and how they've been. They've been difficult and I'm happy to have come through the other side.

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"That's when you need good people around you. It's going in the right direction. It's been awful basically, I played poor, but it's going in a better direction."

The former world No.21, who reached the quarter-finals of the Lexus Eastbourne Open, added: "It's strange how I won last week and it's just been pretty hard.

"I'm not scared of hard work, I'm more than happy to play the Challengers, it's just when you shut the door at night and you do wonder what other people are thinking, what your wife's thinking, is she thinking, come on mate, give this up, or your dad, your parents.

"It's not a conversation you have very often. Is this the right thing? But the last few weeks have been good to see I've still got it because it's easy to say you believe it but it's got to happen otherwise you drop down the rankings.

"Have I had those conversations: No, because they've been positive towards me and that's why you have good people around you is to keep yourself motivated and stuff like that."