Dan Evans has been steadily climbing the ATP rankings in his comeback after serving a year suspension for cocaine use.
The British player ranked 41st in March 2017 started his comeback in May with a series of Challenger appearances in Glasgow and Loughborough before showing what he can do more seriously during the grass court season. Evo, as he is affectionately known to many tennis fans reached the ATP Surbiton semi-finals in June before going one better in Nottingham by reaching the final losing only to Alex De Minaur, collecting lots of valuable ATP ranking points.
Wimbledon did not go to plan and Dan played a poor match against Matthias Bachinger in the 2nd round of qualifying at Roehampton signalling more work was needed to progress further back up the rankings after his time out from the sport.
Evans took a few weeks off before the hard court season approached and with still a low ranking would have to continue to play Challenger level tennis for the time being. Early losses in Binghampton, Lexington and Aptos signalled troubling times for Evans... but last week in his fourth hard court Challenger in a row things changed for the better!
The Birmingham tennis star won a tight final qualifier against USA's Tommy Paul in Canada and having reached the main draw he never looked back. Solid wins against Escobedo, Fabbiano, Ivashka and Pospisil allowed Evans to make his 2nd Challenger final of the year in Vancouver. Yesterday Evans faced his biggest battle of the week so far, a match with Jason Kubler who himself had been finally climbing the ATP rankings after showing glimpses of his former junior success. The Aussie went a set up and so nearly won the match in straight sets before Evans managed to break near the end of the 2nd set to force a decider. The 3rd set was equally tough for both players but it was Evans who came through 7-3 in the tie-breaker to lift his first Challenger title since 2016.
Its a huge step for the 28 year old on his way to trying to compete at the top level once again. He climbs 84 places to ATP 226th and will now be able to enter both Challenger Circuit main draws without having to qualify and also be high enough ranked to make the Qualifying draws of many ATP events where the prize money and ranking points are bigger.
Yes Evo has had his troubles in the past and will probably continue to do so, but the British bad boy of tennis is on the right track again and looks to be putting in the work needed to progress back towards the ATP top 100. He still has plenty of years left so lets hope he stays out of trouble, plays his best tennis and the success will be achieved.
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