Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
De Bondt sprints to victory
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British No 2 Evans, feeling the effects of a chest infection, put in a shift of almost three-and-a-half hours against 23-year-old Swede Mikael Ymer, only to lose in four sets, 6-3 3-6 6-2 6-2.
When Ymer brought up match point Evans, who had clearly had enough, just swatted his service return into the net.
The half-hearted shot was met with jeers from the crowd on a packed Court Six, but Evans was unrepentant.
“I gave away the last point, but I couldn’t care less to be honest with you,” said the 29th seed.
“I think I’d put enough effort in for three-and-a-half hours. I was physically spent. That was it for me. That’s the way it is.
“It was a difficult match. It’s frustrating and it’s upsetting, don’t get me wrong, but that’s the way it goes.”
Evans clearly looked out of sorts despite rallying to take the second set, and kept apologising for spitting and blowing his nose on to the court.
“I’ve had a chest infection since Tuesday last week,” he explained. “I’ve been struggling just with that really. It’s not ideal really.
“Normal symptoms, sweating a lot in the night, bad sleep. The normal stuff. It probably took a lot out of me playing through, getting ready.
DRIES De Bondt won stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia as a four-man breakaway ended hopes of glory for Mark Cavendish and the rest of the sprinters.
The predominantly flat 156km run from Borgo Valsugana to Treviso should have been one for the quick men and the last bunch sprint of this Giro, but they got their sums wrong as the break stayed clear, with De Bondt beating Edoardo Affini, Magnus Cort and Davide Gabburo to the line.
Alberto Dainese brought home the sprinters 14 seconds later, with Cavendish rolling home in eighth place, having been unable to add to his stage three win in this race.
The sprint finish meant no change at the top of the general classification, in which Richard Carapaz leads Jai Hindley by just three seconds with three stages remaining.
Hindley suffered a mechanical issue and rolled in a minute down, but as the incident happened in the final three kilometres he did not lose time overall. However, Joao Almeida, who had dropped from third to fourth on Wednesday’s stage to Lavarone, did not start yesterday having tested positive for Covid19 overnight.
The rest of the UAE Team Emirates squad and staff returned negative tests.
Asked how they held off the peloton, De Bondt said: “The collaboration from the four of us was magnificent. Nobody skipped a turn. It was full, full, full.”