Evans fired up by Djokovic ‘snub’

➤ Fired-up Briton topples world No 1 on Monte Carlo clay ➤ ‘He dismantled my game’ admits Serb after late arrival

Dan Evans achieved a career-best win after he was kept waiting in the dressing room by Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo. Once play began, an incensed Evans made a fast start, breaking Djokovic’s serve twice in a row, and he rode that wave of indignation to a 6-4, 7-5 victory.

The result ended the world No1’s winning sequence in 2021 – which had stood at 10 straight matches including the Australian Open final – while sending Evans through to the quarter-finals of a Masters 1000 event for the first time. “Probably the best victory of his career,” said tournament favourite Rafael Nadal.

Dan Evans, the British No1, cited a disrespectful late arrival from Novak Djokovic as the spur that prompted the best – and most unlikely – victory of his career yesterday in Monte Carlo.

This was a real turn-up. Beating Djokovic had appeared to be an impossible dream for Evans. He has never warmed to clay, nor had he previously managed a victory against anyone ranked higher than No7 in the world.

But Djokovic, who has stood atop the rankings for 14 months, came out strangely flat on a blustery, cold and drizzly day on the Riviera. And Evans was contrastingly brilliant, especially in the large number of stylish drop-shots that he feathered just over the net.

The result was a potpourri of remarkable statistics. This was Djokovic’s first defeat of 2021, after 10 straight victories. It was Evans’s first visit to the quarter-final of a Masters 1000 event (where he will play 11th seed David Goffin today). Most notably, it was the first time that a British man had beaten a world No1 on clay.

A perceived snub in the build-up had helped Evans find his focus. “He kept me waiting at the start of the match in the changing rooms a little bit,” Evans told Amazon Prime after his 6-4, 7-5 win. “It was a little annoying, so I was ready to go from that – it got me a little extra fired up.

“That’s why we roll the balls out,” Evans said. “It’s one against one and you’ve got to see who wins and that’s what I was telling myself. He gave me some cheap ones today, which he never normally does, so I was a little lucky there, but I am just really happy with coming through.”

The same interview finished with a moment of banter as Amazon’s studio pundit, Tim Henman, asked Evans – tongue firmly in cheek – whether clay was now his favourite surface. “Is golf your favourite sport?” replied Evans, without addressing the question.

Before this tournament, Evans had scored only two clay-court wins at ATP Tour level in his entire career. They were all the way back in 2017 in Barcelona, in the same week when he had given the positive cocaine test which resulted in a year-long ban.

Since then he had played 10, lost 10 at this level of clay-court tennis.

But the past few days in Monte Carlo have been a revelation, starting with a hard-earned three-set win against another Serb – Dusan Lajovic – and continuing on Wednesday through a comfortable ousting of an out-of-sorts Hubert Hurkacz, of Poland, the recent Miami Open champion.

Djokovic did not waste any time after the match, walking straight to the press-conference room and bemoaning his own efforts.

“That’s been one of the worst performances I can remember in many years,” Djokovic said. “I don’t want to take anything away from his win, but from my side, I just felt awful on the court overall. Just nothing worked. It’s one of those days.

“Yesterday I played a pretty good match I thought,” said Djokovic, who had overcome the other recent Miami finalist, Italy’s Jannik Sinner, in his opening match with little difficulty. “Today was completely the opposite of what I felt yesterday. It was very, very windy, tough to play in these kind of conditions against a guy like Evans, who makes you move. He’s very unpredictable with his shots. He dismantled my game.”

Goffin, meanwhile, credited Evans for an “incredible performance” once he had closed out his own victory over world No6 Alexander Zverev. “You’re always surprised when Novak is losing before the final,” Goffin said. “But if you see Dan, he’s an amazing, talented player. I always thought that he could play on every surface.

“Maybe in his head he was not a clay-court player in the past, so he was not super confident on that surface. But now it looks like he’s more professional, more stable in his game. Last time I played him [at the ATP Cup 15 months ago], I lost. I need to be solid and to keep doing the same things as I’ve been doing: be aggressive and try to push him.”