Evans succumbs to ‘total panic’ to end British hopes

IN the end, the way Dan Evans collapsed, he might as well have been wearing whites, pads and carrying a wooden bat.

This has not been an edifying winter in the southern hemisphere for British athletes, and the departure of the Last Brit Standing from the Australian Open was no exception. Much like the cricketers, he lost all the most important phases of play and his descent towards defeat was swift and humbling.

The first set, the tight one, took 48 minutes to complete; the two that followed, in which Evans won just two games of 14, barely took much longer. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the young Canadian prospect, was a formidable opponent, particularly off his serve, winning 6-4, 6-1, 6-1.

He is seeded nine to Evans’ 24. No one should pretend this was not expected, even if the round two walkover offered hope that Evans might be nicely rested and better prepared. Ultimately, even the positive became a negative. Evans said he had too much time to think going into this match, and that the withdrawal of Arthur Rinderknech in the previous round with a wrist injury meant he lost momentum.

Even so, it shouldn’t have been as easy as this for Auger-Aliassime and Evans, with his usual frankness, admitted as much.

‘Look, you guys have watched enough tennis,’ he said. ‘I panicked on the court. It was total. I missed my chance and I panicked and that happens in tennis. I’m not going to sit here and say he was too good. I panicked and I felt that.

‘Maybe next time go out and look at the court before I play, see what it’s like. Not playing the two days before, I had not seen any crowds, I had been in the locker room, I had been just around the place and then I sort of walked out and it was…’

He didn’t complete the sentence, but it was obvious what he meant.

‘I made a mistake there,’ Evans continued. ‘I’m not making excuses but it wasn’t easy to have a walkover. I lost my momentum because I never had that before, two days off, and it was difficult. I thought about the match quite a lot and probably overthought it. When I first found out about Arthur, I thought: this is good. And then I just had so much time. I thought I’ve got a decent chance to win and probably thought about him too much, rather than looking after myself and my own game. That feeling can make people react in funny ways. I was a little nervous before the match.

‘So it never felt like there was a rhythm to the match for me. I had a chance and snatched at it early. My decision making wasn’t what it should be and then I wasn’t in the match to be honest, it was pretty one way. After that chance I couldn’t find my game.’

Full marks for honesty, less so for the tennis. The bottom line was that Evans had one big opportunity to change the direction of the game, and blew it. He never got that mistake out of his system, Auger-Aliassime turned it to his advantage.

In the fifth game of the first set, Evans had a break point at 30-40 which he let slip. Then, same set, he had another in game nine. Take that and Evans would have been serving for the set. He did not.

Then, next game, when Evans put a volley at the net long, giving Auger-Aliassime his first break point of the match, calamity. Evans bunged a bread-and-butter volley into the net, and the set was gone.

He was outplayed all the way after that, but losing that first set as he did was pure carelessness. Evans did not take one break point, Auger-Aliassime converted six of seven. Evans hit ten winners, Auger-Aliassime 40.

The first set unfolded in the most incongruous surrounds too. A concert at a nearby open space bled into the John Cain Arena providing a backdrop of mawkish classics, not always in tune. We Are The World, Let It Be, Rocket Man, Hey Jude — Evans made light of it after, saying he played his best tennis when the music was on, but during the match he was less forgiving.

‘It’s not like it’s a little bit loud, it’s on the court,’ he told the umpire, who admitted he was powerless. As Evans was spurning his first break point, a singer was warbling: ‘We all rise.’ He didn’t much, after that.

And while it is fine to talk of learning experiences, Evans is 31 and has never made it past the fourth round of any Grand Slam event. How many more opportunities are there going to be? How many winnable games at this level? The gulf between him and Auger-Aliassime, ten years his junior, appeared enormous by the end. It was nice to see compatriots Andy Murray, Joe Salisbury and Leon Smith in the box supporting, but the last British male player to go deep into a tournament — last eight or beyond — was Kyle Edmund here in 2018.

‘It’s a nice gesture that they came out,’ said Evans. ‘They’re probably regretting wasting two hours of their time now.’ He shouldn’t worry. It wasn’t the first time. Probably won’t be the last, either.