Week 2 - Australian Open men's qualifying - Hard

Julia Carrot · All-time great

RE: Week 2 - Australian Open men's qualifying - Hard

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Wish I hadn't got up now.

Dan is 4-0 down

Spectator · All-time great

Injured?

DWH · Club Coach

Unfortunately no comeback Evo goes out 4-6 1-6

cry

-- Edited by DWH on Thursday 9th of January 2014 07:34:03 AM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Spectator wrote:
Injured?

No. Just outplayed on the day it seems.

TMH · Futures qualifying

That's a really disappointing result.

Jiwan · Club Coach

Dan couldn't have picked a better time to come on court as there was cloud cover for the first time throughout the day. Unlike poor Jo, he didn't have to endure the blistering Melbourne heat.

Things started really well, Dan was in fact playing beautifully. Great all court coverage, coming to the net freely, showing some beautiful touch at the net, serving solidly. He wasn't troubled ( neither was his opponent) on serve at all for his first four service games. At this point I thought Dan was the slight favorite, he looked in control and whilst the big Hungarian had some weighty shots /serve, it looked like Dan had the measure of him. Then in the blink of an eye the match was pretty much over. Dan serving at 4-5 to stay in the set, served two double faults with two unforced errors and was broken to love. He rushed through that service game at crazy speed and immediately left the court for what was presumably a toilet break. It looked like he had to get off court as soon as possible. Perhaps something happened that the crowd weren't aware of. Certainly no injury.

Wherever he went he didn't really return to the game. He looked agitated, unfocused and didn't look like he wanted to be there (yup that Dan Evans). It looked like he had an issue with a lines person on his first service game in the second set which again annoyed him. At this point Dan received a code violation for something the umpire heard him say....and really that was it. He stopped chasing balls down mid way through the second set, it was difficult to watch Dan self destruct in front of a decent crowd that had stayed late to see him.

I'm not taking anything away from the big hung one he played a solid game and was very consistent. I think he realised he just had to keep the ball into play after the first set. He certainly deserved to win.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Ben Rothenberg (of the NY Times) tweets:-

"To say Dan Evans went down fighting would be an overstatement".

Doesn't get more damning than that. Dan tends to play very fast when he gets tight, sounds like he got a bit nervy at *4-5, played a very poor game and then collapsed mentally and his game unravelled.

I thought he had a nice looking section, but this level is still a bit new to him.

-- Edited by PaulM on Thursday 9th of January 2014 08:55:10 AM

Julia Carrot · All-time great

'Having served so well, Dan Evans throws in two doubles and is broken with Fucsovics barely having to touch ball. 64 1st set'

Neil Harman's tweet. Unfortunately Neil also seemed to lose his concentration on the game after that and never elaborated on Dan leaving the court or hint at anything having upset Dan.

So, thank you very much Jiwan for filling us in. It does seem Dan was profoundly distracted by something and never 'got a grip' after that or even wished to perhaps.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Oh Dan

Thank you for the match report Jiwan.

The return to his former behaviour in the second set is worrying but hopefully it is just a blip in his year, or even works as a catalyst for greater things - thus speaks the eternal optimist!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

imoen wrote:
Oh Dan

Thank you for the match report Jiwan.

The return to his former behaviour in the second set is worrying but hopefully it is just a blip in his year, or even works as a catalyst for greater things - thus speaks the eternal optimist!

Yes, really good to read the match report - well, 'really good' may not be the right term, given what happened, but really appreciate having a match report, thanks Jiwan. Who know what goes on in that lad's head sometimes ? But a great shame . . .

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Really disappointing result to log on to this morning. bleh I was expecting a tough match, but eventual victory! disbelief The Beeb's report doesn't shed much light on the course of events, unfortunately.

Spectator · All-time great

Maybe just as well. One to move away from with all deliberate speed - and without a wake of reproachful articles. Hope things pick up for all the GB men. Most encouraged by the report on Mr Cox, who had the toughest road and seems to have done reasonably well.

steven · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
Really disappointing result to log on to this morning. I was expecting a tough match, but eventual victory! The Beeb's report doesn't shed much light on the course of events, unfortunately.

Anthony Constant provided these tweets from courtside:

its Evo time. hope the battery lasts. overcast and cooler now.

2-1 on serve to fucsovics. evo to serve now

3-2 still on serve

4-3 no surprises still on serve

5-4 on serve

and evo gets broken 6-4 to fucsovics

verbal warning and broken 0-2 down

0-3 fuscovics scrapes that long game. battery almost dead now as well

5-0 now .its a long way back

6-4 6-1 not there in the second set be interesting to hear his views.

So it sounds like things were going fine until the last game of the 1st set, when from tweets by some of the journos (many of whom were pretty scathing in the end), Dan served two double faults, helping Fucsovics to get the first break. It sounds like the Hungarian improved from there and Dan got frustrated and it just slipped away after that. Very disappointing since he seemed to have a good chance of qualifying and was very professional in his first match but, hey, we never thought the road wasn't going to have bumps in it, did we ...

Edit: strange, when I first looked, I didn't see Jiwan's very informative post and the earlier comments on what the journos said - anyway, this still works as further corroboration of the reports coming out of Melbourne.

-- Edited by steven on Thursday 9th of January 2014 11:47:08 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

Oh dear, first match and the start of this match seems to have been good Evo then bad Evo returned.

Get into some challengers, lad, and get some matches under your belt !