Evans’ French Open debut ends in defeat
Dan Evans wilted in the Paris heat to lose his first-round match against clay-court veteran Tommy Robredo.
The British No 4 was making his French Open debut and won the first set on a stifling Court 2 but 35year-old Robredo hit back to triumph 5-7 6-4 6-3 6-1.
Robredo is ranked down at 271 after injury problems in recent years but remains a seriously tough customer on clay.
Evans had not played a match on the surface for nearly three years before this season, so certain was he
that he could not make it work for his game style.
He picked up his first two ATP Tour wins on clay in Barcelona last month but has surely been counting down the days until he can set foot on grass.
That will be very soon - he has doubles here with Kyle Edmund first - after a performance against Robredo that showed both how far he has come on clay and how far he still has to go.
There were noticeable improvements in his movement and his groundstrokes, particularly his singlehanded topspin backhand, from which flowed several scintillating winners.
Having told coach Mark Hilton agitatedly that he could not breathe in the early stages, Evans deployed his backhand brilliantly to break for 6-5 and served out the set confidently.
Had Evans held on to an early advantage in the second set, things might have turned out differently, but a poor game at 2-1 gave Robredo some momentum and he never relinquished it.
The Spaniard is a five-time quarter-finalist here, most recently in 2013 when he recovered from two sets down in three successive matches, so this comeback was far from daunting.
Evans began to look more and more bothered by the heat and dropped serve again to lose the second set before trailing early in the third.
He twice broke back only to lose his own serve again immediately and by the fourth set his chance had gone.