Desperate for Dan as fresh Fed hands out a thrashing
The match had been over for nearly an hour before Dan evans managed to lay a glove on Roger Federer.
his suggestion that their noon start had favoured the Swiss master caused more discomfort than anything that happened earlier on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the world No 3 administered a 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 beating in the US Open third round.
It left Jo Konta as, once again, the last British singles player standing. In the last 16 she will face No 3 seed Karolina Pliskova after dismissing China’s Zhang Shuai 6-2, 6-3 in 72 minutes.
Federer had handed out a schooling to evans, who later complained about being placed as first match on, given that his rain-delayed second-round match that had taken three hours and 10 minutes finished less than 24 hours previously.
The 29-year-old Midlander said he felt tired and would have liked a bit more rest, and repeated the widely-held belief in the locker room that superstars like Federer can bring influence to bear on the schedulers.
‘There are probably about four people in this tournament who have a say when they play, maybe three,’ he said.
This successfully poked at a raw nerve, which drew a rare fourletter utterance — but far from an outright denial — from tennis’s smoothest operator. ‘I definitely didn’t do it intentionally. I don’t
even know if the team asked for day,’ responded Federer.erer. ‘But that doesn’t mean like, “Roger asks, Roger gets”. ets”. Just remember that, at, because I have heard d this s**t too often now. . I’m sick and tired of it, that apparently I call the shots. The tournament and the TV stations do.
‘ We can give our opinion. But I’m still going to walk out even n if they schedule me at four in the morning.’
earlier he had expressed essed sympathy with evans, concedbl
conceding that him being able to t complete his prior match on Wednesday under the roof was an advantage. he made another point, about a tournament whose commercial clout means that it can pays its third-round losers like evans £135,000 each, ‘That’s tennis,’ said Federer. ‘It’s entertainment, and the show must go on. I understand if Danny is a little bit frustrated.’
evans had mixed his complaint with the hint of conspiracy: ‘It’s tough on me, isn’t it? But that wouldn’t be the first time the higher- ranked player has had pull.p But ththey would ratherrat he go throthrough than me.’ This kindkin of spat ddoes nott exactly increase the chances of evans being invited back to train with the great man in Switzerland, as he was in April. Irrespective, a few hours more preparation is unlikely to have been the difference yesterday, although the scale of the defeat was surprising, given that Federer had looked somewhat vulnerable in the first two rounds. Those had been marked by his slow starts, but this time he was in command from the off, thwarting evans’s hopes of coming forward by taking the ball early, and attacking off the British player’s usually effective backhand slice.
Bewildered by the end of the second set, evans smashed his racket at the changeover, but it got no better after that.
‘him being totally fresh and me battling yesterday, I didn’t get out of here until going on 6pm. Just to try and beat him feeling tired, stiff, playing four sets yesterday, it’s near on impossible,’ concluded evans.
Far less fractious was Konta’s outstanding performance against world No 34 Zhang, which rendered the Chinese counter puncher helpless through an aggressive onslaught. The British No 1 dropped only six points on her serve as she clocked up a 13th singles win in a Grand Slam this season. At no point did she look threatened and this is starting to resemble the kind of fearless form that carried her to the semi-finals at Roland Garros and the last eight of Wimbledon.
This was the eighth time she has played in the third round of a major and she has won every time, a statistic that backs up the theory that she feeds off momentum and confidence.
As is her habit, Konta claimed that the contest was closer than it looked: ‘They are never clean and straightforward,’ she said. ‘There was nothing easy about that match, I had to stay clear on what was happening.’
She now faces Pliskova, and there is the chance of an upset after the big- serving Czech laboured past Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in three sets.