»Evans’ dark days as he served drugs ban,
BRITISH tennis player Dan Evans has revealed that he spent some dark days at home in Cheltenham while he served a one-year drug ban.
In April 2017, a month after reaching a career-high ranking of 41, Evans, 28, failed a drugs test at an ATP event in Barcelona.
But the British No 4 pushed Roger Federer all the way before losing 7-6, 7-6, 6-3 to the Swiss legend at the Australian Open - and the man dubbed the greatest of all time then backed him to reach the heights of the world’s top 50 again.
Federer said afterwards that playing Evans felt like “playing a mirror” and added: “I have high regard for Dan. I think he’s a good player. I think he can be top 50 again.
“I’ve seen him play some really good matches. He’s got a nice slice and defends the court well. He has the variation, which is always hard to play against.”
Evans took cocaine out of competition four days before the failed test and could have faced a four-year ban but that was reduced by the International Tennis Federation because cocaine is not performance-enhancing and it was taken out of competition.
For the first nine months of his ban Evans did not even pick up a racket.
“I was just at home in Cheltenham and just in the house - pretty much depressed, actually,” he said.
“I didn’t think I’d ever play again. They were difficult times. I didn’t know I would end up still having the people around me who were there. I was difficult to be around. Obviously, I owe them a lot.”
He passed much of the year’s ban on the golf course, and aside from a holiday in Marbella, he spent most of the time in Cheltenham with his girlfriend Aleah, sometimes struggling to fill his days.
“I was saying to my girlfriend how long a working day actually is: 9 to 5 is a long, long time,” he said. “Daytime TV is not good.
“It wasn’t easy, there’s some terrible moments in those nine months. At the start I was heartbroken not to be playing tennis.
“There isn’t that much you can do in the day when other people are working.”
But Evans gave himself and everyone else a reminder of his talents by pushing Roger Federer on Rod Laver Arena in the second round of the Australian Open.
The 28-year-old, originally from Birmingham, reached his career high two years ago by defeating Marin Cilic in Melbourne to make the fourth round before the selfinflicted exile.
He has worked his way back to 189 in the rankings in less than a year and should return quickly to the top 100 if he can maintain the form he showed against the twotime defending champion.