“That’s probably the first time I’ve looked around and saw people smiling and shouting and hollering at me,” said the British veteran Dan Evans on Saturday night. “It’s not going to last for ever. We all know that.”
Evans was talking in the wake of his third-round match on Louis Armstrong Stadium. Having just lost in four sets to Alex de Minaur, he sounded like a man contemplating his own sporting mentality.
At 34, Evans is enduring a largely miserable season, which has seen his ranking plummet from No. 40 on Jan 1 to No. 184 now. A slightly built figure, he has to work increasingly hard to keep up with the six-and-a-half-footers who dominate modern tennis.
Still, Evans leaves New York in a far better frame of mind than he had arrived, after a courageous campaign which began with the longest match in the 142-year history of the US Open.
“Today was tough,” said Evans. “I was a bit sick before the match and then my hip just seized up and became very problematic at the start of the third set. But I came to America with no expectations and a lot of doubt, and I left with a lot of clarity that I can still do it at the higher level. Maybe not quite the top level, but the higher level.”
Evans’s gradual decline against de Minaur should not have come as a surprise. His first-round win over 23rd seed Karen Khachanov, which lasted five hours and 35 minutes, would have knocked the stuffing out of most players.
To his credit, he came back less than 48 hours later to defeat Argentina’s Mariano Navone in straight sets. But de Minaur proved to be a very different proposition, despite a hip condition of his own which he has been carrying since Wimbledon.
On Thursday, de Minaur had told reporters that he is operating at only 80 per cent of his physical maximum. Even at 80 per cent, though, he still covered the court with almost indecent haste.
There was one stunning point which saw de Minaur circle around in a sort of horseshoe pattern to reach Evans’s forehand pass and redirect it crosscourt for an apparently impossible winner.
On top of his lickety-split movement, which is arguably the fastest on the tour, de Minaur wasn’t missing much either. As a result, Evans spent the first two sets entangled in endless tit-for-tat exchanges. At this stage, the average rally length was an exhausting six shots, half as much again as the tournament norm.
Some of the points were quite brilliant, for both these men rely on touch and accuracy rather than brute strength. There were tweeners and lunge volleys, slices and steepling lobs. Each rally had to be constructed as precisely as a piece of Meccano.
Unable to outflank de Minaur from the baseline, Evans did his best to camp at the net, only to be repeatedly lobbed and passed by his equally deft opponent. He managed to steal the second set on a tie-break, but the effort left him doubled over, and he was forced to call the trainer to the court in the early stages of the third.
From there, his movement fell away quickly, and all the tension drained out of the match. Evans failed to win another game, and should probably have retired to spare himself any further damage. But he is a stubborn so-and-so, and he insisted on fighting all the way to the end of his 6-3, 6-7, 6-0, 6-0 defeat.
“It was pretty bemusing that they started to boo me,” said Evans in relation to a number of ignorant fans who got on his back in the final game.
“The irony was that I was staying out there for them. And, of course, I respect Alex. I don’t think you should be pulling out on a grand slam. You finish the match. That’s how I was brought up: you stay till the end, and you shake hands. And he actually said, ‘Thanks for staying out there, respect.’”
Thanks to Carlos Alcaraz’s unexpected exit on Thursday night, de Minaur now stands at the forefront of an unexpected quartet – the others being fellow Aussie Jordan Thompson, the Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac and British hope Jack Draper – who are all looking to reach their first major semi-final.
Asked for his prediction, Evans said “I’m hoping he [de Minaur] won’t go too much further, because I want Jack to get there. Jack’s got a tough match [against Machac]. It’s good opportunity, but he’s got it all to do. And my fingers are crossed for him. It would be great for him and his confidence if he has a big run.”
As for Evans’s own plans, he is focusing on Great Britain’s Davis Cup campaign, which will crank up immediately after the US Open with three home ties in Manchester.
“My groin and my hip have been been sore ever since the first match,” said Evans. “I will be fine after a few days’ rest. A few beers will help as well. Then I’ll play Davis Cup and hopefully we’ll qualify for the finals [which will be played in Malaga in late November].
“I want to take a proper rest at some point,” Evans added. “It’s important not just for me but for [his girlfriend] Aleah, and for my team. It takes a toll on other people as well when you’re not winning. It’s not just about turning up every day to play tennis. There’s bigger things in life.”
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