In 2017 British tennis star Daniel Evans managed to get himself to his highest ranking in his career history at 41st in the world. Just two years earlier he was all the way up at 631. He climbed almost 600 places in the rankings and in 2017 was enjoying racking up some top 20 wins including defeating players such as Dominic Thiem (ranked 8th in the world at the time) along the way to reaching the Sydney 250 final plus beating Marin Cilic (ranked 7th) in the Australian Open.
But things were to take a turn for the worse when he tested positive for Cocaine use at the Barcelona Open. It's important to point out that taking Cocaine outside of competition is not illegal in the sport of tennis, but Evans had left Cocaine residue in his wash bag and that had contaminated legitimate medicine he was taking. He was given a one year ban from the sport, stripped of his Lawn Tennis Association funding and forced to hand back over £90,000 worth in prize money.
Evans spent a year in isolation in his girlfriends flat, spending most of his time at home watching TV depressed, void of much purpose without tennis he felt a deep sense of guilt for what he had done and didn't feel it was appropriate to be out enjoying himself given the shame he had brought onto British tennis, himself and others around him. He had already twice in the past been stripped of his funding from the LTA for attitude and behavioural problems so he had scored a hat trick of punishments here.
A year later ranked 1195th in the world he would return to the court in 2018 in an attempt to rebuild his career. He didn't take long to show that although he had made the biggest mistake of his career, had spent a month in solitude, he wasn't going to let that be his downfall. From May 2018 to the end of the year he climbed over 1000 positions in the rankings down to 192nd in the world.
He accomplished this the hardest way possible, he had to go through three qualifying round matches in each of his six Challenger Tour events (not even ATP 250 - the lower tournaments), some of which he stumbled in before even reaching the official tournament rounds. In the Surbiton Great Britain Challenger Event he played 6 matches just to reach the Semi Finals, along the way beating world number 176, 115 and 153 in straight sets.
In the Nottingham challenger event he took out two more ranked 100-200 players before losing to Australia's new tennis star Alex De Minaur in a tight final.
It took him four months to finally win a Challenger event in Vancouver where he had to go through stiff competition. A month later when representing Great Britain once more in the Davis Cup he overcame Dennis Istomin ranked 60th at the time in a 5 set thriller.
Then after three more challenger event stumbles in early rounds taking the wind out of his sails one would think Evans may just go quietly into the night in 2019, perhaps his chance to compete on the best stages in world tennis would be a step too far this time.
Remarkably this month at the Australian Open Evans came through three qualifying rounds to reach the official opening round of the Slam in Melbourne against players ranked far above him. This lead him to an official opening round win against Japan's Tatsuma Ito where he won in straight sets. That was a rather small court with a minimal crowd. What this lead to was a match today vs Roger Federer in the biggest venue at the Australian Open - The Rod Laver Arena. Here in front of a capacity crowd of 15,000 tennis fans he produced some stunning tennis to take Federer all the way in the opening two sets and never backing down in the final set.
Daniel Evans may have lost today against Federer but he played arguably his best tennis of his career thus far to show that he is still a great talent for British tennis capable of playing against the best. Whilst ranked 14th in the world Brit Kyle Edmund stumbled out in disappointing fashion vs Tomaz Berdych, Evans fresh off the challenger tour events showed what a true British tennis player is all about. He was hungry for points, never looked down when he lost some tight games against the worlds best and had Roger Federer running all over the court at times. He arguably could have pinched a set off the reigning Swiss champion.
There is no doubt after a year ban in isolation Daniel Evans is back and just at the right time for British tennis. Whilst Andy Murray put up a brave fight in his opening round exit vs Bautista Agut, he is clearly a spent force and British tennis needs a new hope to cling to. Maybe not to accomplish quiet what Murray did, but to at least fly the flag with pride and give the fans some hope to cling to. This layman of tennis has more of an identifiable feel to him than Tim Henman who was an upper class kid who grew up in Oxfordshire with a tennis court in his back yard. Heman's parents had money. Murray's parents and Evan's parents are more ordinary, they were not incredibly wealthy when their sons were growing up learning and training in tennis. Evans has that working class feel about him and although he's made mistakes in the past, he cuts a refreshing look to him compared to the richer kids who dominate a lot of the ATP tour circuit across the world.
Just to put Evans performance today in perspective, he played just one ATP tour event last year, mostly challenger events against players ranked over 100. He came on court today against Roger Federer, world number 3 and defending Melbourne champion. He took the Swiss Maestro to two tie breaks and a tight third set (the match finished 7-6, 7-6, 6-3 to Federer), never looked out of place on court vs him, was never intimidated or dominated on court and played some shrewd and at times aggressive tennis. It was the best match I have seen Federer feature in since playing Tsitsipas at the Hopman Cup and that's in large part to Evans performance that forced Federer to bring out his best tennis.
Compare that to another British tennis player Cameron Norrie who although a promising talent for Britain and currently ranked over 100 places higher than Evans, was destroyed last month by Federer 6-1, 6-1 in the Hopman Cup and never looked close to winning more than a game per set. It speaks volumes for Daniel Evans talent, spirit and recovery from a personal crisis...I can't wait to see what else he has in store for us Brit's this year on the ATP tour. This small run in the Aussie Open should see him climb substantially in the rankings.
Watch Evans Amazing Performance vs Federer: From Challenger Court to World Stage
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