AS BRITS WE PLAY SO POLITELY. IT’S LIKE WE DON’T WANT TO UPSET ANYBODY...
BAD BOY OF BRITISH TENNIS DAN EVANS ON OUR FLAWED SYSTEM, BEATING NOVAK AND FIGHTING BACK FROM HIS DRUG BAN
Dan Evans is looking back on some of the feistier matches he has played this year, and the long road he has taken to becoming British no 1.
Regrets, he’s had a few, but it does not stop him reaching one conclusion. ‘ a few of the tennis players could do with a night out in Birmingham, they’d learn a few things,’ he says.
In a sport that forces many of its participants to become citizens of nowhere, he remains firmly rooted in the Midlands. From cutting his teeth as a junior in local adult leagues to beating world no 1 novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo, it has been quite a journey.
Its latest stage sees him heading into Wimbledon as GB’s highest ranked male. Once the wildchild of the British game — now more the sage of solihull — his conversation brims with wisdom on subjects such as GB players tending to be excessively respectful, to why too much emphasis on sports science stifles our production of elite players.
His remarkable clay court victory over Djokovic in april, almost exactly three years after he returned from a cocaine ban, was the ultimate validation. It provided him, he says, with the single most joyous moment of his comeback.
‘ My dad messaged me afterwards saying, “Jeez that was good”, and he doesn’t say too much, so that was special,’ Evans tells Sportsmail. ‘If I’m honest Monte Carlo is not my kind of place. It has never appealed to me that much.
‘But to beat a world no 1 on clay when I supposedly had no chance, it summed up why I carried on when there were a lot of things going against me.
‘If you don’t think you can win then why open the tin of balls? That’s what I felt that day. novak showed he can be vulnerable.
‘as British players we can be too polite. I don’t know if it’s because we are taught this way, or the type of people who get into tennis, their background, perhaps that’s to not fight so hard. sometimes they would rather play a nice match and not upset anybody.
‘If you look at those who have been successful in our sport, they respect people but know how to win. Tim Henman thought he was good and had the game to beat anyone. Greg Rusedski with his serve. andy Murray has always relished scraps with the best.’
The Djokovic win — one of Evans’s 15 against top 20 opposition since he came back — helped make up for the long year in exile, during which he watched an unhealthy amount of daytime Tv.
There were plenty of lows once he emerged from his suspension. He reflects: ‘When I returned from the drugs ban, I remember one conversation with simon Timson ( the LTa’s then Performance Director) when he told me he didn’t think I had much chance of getting back. That was a tough one to listen to.
‘I remember losing a first round at a small Challenger event in adelaide in the first week of 2019. That was difficult, I had played so well in the lead- up and then flopped. I despaired after that for a few days. My then coach David Felgate did a decent job getting me through that.’
The following week he came through qualifying at the
australian Open and made it to the second round, where he gave Roger Federer a decent test. Federer was sufficiently impressed that he subsequently invited him to train with him in switzerland, and they have been practice partners again this week.
Federer has described playing Evans as a bit like looking in the mirror, as they hit the ball in a similarly elegant style. Evans’s talent has never been in any doubt, he was more held back in his younger days by a tendency to treat some tournaments more like they were stag weekends.
now 31, what would he have told his 21-year-old self? ‘I would have said change your lifestyle for sure,’ he says. ‘I’d say open your eyes. The tour is an education, there are ways of living on it. I never really opened my eyes to that, I didn’t want to learn, I was stuck in my ways and thought I knew right.
‘The tour is difficult but if you get used to it, you like it. It’s tough to look back now and think I didn’t commit to being a tennis player that early.’
He has long since been a convert to the virtues of hard work, and getting extremely fit. While not a routine basher of the Lawn Tennis association — he praises the bubbles at their pre-Wimbledon tournaments as the best of the many he has been confined in — he bluntly says they are getting much wrong when it comes to training players.
‘The game is pretty simple. In British tennis we over-complicate it,’ he explains. ‘The sport is not a science. The players need to hit a lot of tennis balls and get incredibly fit. That’s not something we are focusing on enough.
‘On the tour the players are working very hard, grinding, running. I struggle with it when I hear around the LTa that it’s not a running sport. One of the fitness
‘I’ve seen things on nights out that would frighten you but not on a tennis court’
coaches there told me that — that’s remarkable to hear because trust me, I can tell you from playing at the highest level that it is.
‘That needs to change if we want more decent players. It seems we are moving away from hard tennis work, with too much emphasis on weights, programmes, lifting, and unfortunately some fitness trainers are not sufficiently from a tennis background.
‘You only need to look at the number of injuries our players are having. If you are injured that’s physical, not unlucky, most of the time. A lot of the time the physios are blamed but the proof is in the pudding — there are so many injuries in that place (the National Tennis Centre) it’s incredible. If you aren’t working properly, you will break down.’
He does not believe it is coincidence that he and the ultra-fit Cam Norrie have been performing so consistently: ‘Cam and I have not been using their trainers at the NTC, which I’m not sure is an accident. Part of the game is staying on the court.’
Evans has also become an uncompromising competitor.
Some matches this year, such as against Frenchman Corentin Moutet in Barcelona and Italian Lorenzo Musetti in Sardinia, have been especially abrasive. Not all appreciate his tactic of coming far into the court to receive serve.
‘I’m out there to win and change the game, I’m there to compete. I’m not afraid of what they are going to say afterwards,’ says Evans. ‘I’ve seen a thing or two on nights out that would frighten you, but not on a tennis court. A few of the tennis players could do with a night out in Birmingham, they’d learn a few things.’
He has been around long enough at the top of the game now to have played many of the top players and assess them. He is fairly convinced about who will be the
next big things, once the current superstars fade away. ‘I’ve played Stefanos Tsitsipas a few times and in my opinion, he is closest to being the next guy who will take the mantle. If he came to the net a bit more that would be him complete,’ he says. ‘His forehand and backhand are so good. Alex Zverev has got the attitude, he thinks he’s mustard and that’s a big thing. Those two are a bit ahead of the others, in my opinion.’ Evans will be seeded at 23 in this morning’s singles draw, GB’s highest entrant of either sex. He reveals that he is rewarding himself for all the hard work by buying a racehorse, and that he has spoken to trainer Fergal O’Brien, based close to where he lives with his partner Aleah in Cheltenham. Nowadays racing and spending time with his young niece and two nephews are his main outside recreations. ‘I love the horses and it’s important to give yourself something you deserve for the hard work,’ he adds. ‘I still have a drink every now and then but I’m not very good at it now so I avoid it — the next day is a bit of a problem. ‘My tennis is still improving, that’s the most important thing, so I think I’m in a good place.’