British #2 Dan Evans scored a thrilling victory over Alexander Zverev on Thursday. The German teenager is tipped to become a future potential World #1.
Ranked 27th in the world, Zverev went into the match as the favourite. After all, the Brit is ranked over 20 places lower than the German.
In the first two sets there was nothing Zverev could do against Evans, as the Brit secured the break of serves needed in each set.
The German was not happy with line calls, and Court 4, where the match took place, does not have Hawkeye. Zverev did not ingratiate himself to the Flushing Meadow crowd. Losing serve the German proceed to smash his racquet into the court several times and broke it.
The Brit then requested that bits of graphite that were remaining on the court were removed when it was his turn to serve from that end.
The 19-year-old Zverev has been touted as a future number one, but has suffered patchy results since defeating Roger Federer in Halle in June, at what is considered the Swiss players “second home” (the first being Wimbledon). Federer has won the title in Halle eight times; the German prevented it from being nine.
Evans was in top form for the first two sets, only for the German to pull back the third with a late break of serve. The fourth set saw the Brit dominating, especially in the very decisive points.
Although the Brit has made the third round of the US Open before, having beaten both Bernard Tomic and Kei Nishikori, this victory has been ranked by Evans himself as the best of his career.
Evans has come a long way recently, after injury and with a reputation of being the “Bad boy” of British Tennis. Evans dropped down to Challengers and below in an effort to increase his ranking. In September 2015, Evans was ranked down at 300.
Working his way back up, and winning titles along the way, the Brit has pushed his ranking up to just below the top 50. This will give Evans direct entry into Masters events as well as ATP main tour events.
The reward for the Brit is a fourth round match against Stan Wawrinka. This will make two Slams in a row that Evans will have played a high ranking Swiss. The Brit faced Federer at Wimbledon and despite losing in straight sets, enjoyed the whole experience.
Will the Brit be up to the challenge of Wawrinka? He will certainly give his all and could push the seed hard. Wawrinka is yet to lose a set in Flushing Meadows this year; the Brit could change that.
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