End of road for Norrie and Evans
TWENTY-FOUR hours can be a long time in British tennis, and they do not come in much grimmer spans than that which concluded last night at Flushing Meadows. That was all it took for the memory of GB celebrating its best male representation in the US Open to fade into soggy disappointment, with Dan Evans failing to mount a last stand. Kicking it all off was Jo Konta being upset on Thursday by Romania’s Sorana Cirstea in the women’s second round, and thereafter Evans, Cam Norrie and Andy Murray fell in a heap. By mid-afternoon, local time, yesterday they were lowering the Union Flag as far as singles was concerned. Norrie and Evans were ultimately lacklustre in going out to lower ranked opposition, having both established positions from which they could have pressed on to win. After rain stopped play on Thursday night, British No 1 Evans resumed yesterday a set-all and serving at 6-5 down against France’s Corentin Moutet. The match was a joy to watch for the neutral but jarring for the partisan, as the 23rd seed became strangely passive at 4-1 up in the third set tiebreaker to lose it 7-5, overall going down 4-6, 6-3, 7-6, 7-6. He failed to hold on to his break advantage in the fourth against a gifted but inexperienced opponent. In the fourth set tiebreak the 21-year-old Frenchman again executed his shots better under pressure. Evans was unsparing on himself: ‘I didn’t play great over the two days,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. I was up in the match numerous times, you y have got to win w those matches. My forehand was woeful. He is pretty awkward and he is very quick, but I wasn’t good enough.’ Norrie was making decent headway at a set-all and a break up before losing 11 of the last 12 games to go down 7-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 to the world No 99 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, ranked 23 places below him. Afterwards he complained about feeling dehydrated for the last two sets and could not figure out why. ‘My eyesight got a bit blurry, I didn’t see the ball that clearly at the start of the third set. I usually love the heat,’ said Norrie, who has played much of his tennis in America. ‘I dropped my level and he stepped it up, it’s disappointing.’ There was nothing between them until Norrie unravelled, going to pieces in the third, ending it with a code violation for an audible obscenity. By the end of his three matches Norrie had faced 59 break points in total, showing what hard work it had been for a player who lacks a major weapon to gain him free points. Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, who has been in semi-quarantine due to previous contacts with the positive testing Benoit Paire, had his match against Alex Zverev delayed last night prior to local health officials giving him permission to play.