This tournament was thought to be all about the expected final showdown between Daniel Evans and Daniel Cox, Britain's two highest profile U16s.
However, Cox was beaten 6-4, 7-5 in the quarters by Northamptonshire's James Richardson and at the same stage Marcus Willis [ranked no 2 in U16s in GB] was beaten 6-4, 6-1 by Daniel Smethurst.
This left Evans' path clear to take the title and he did so, beating Berkshire's Neil Pauffley 6-3, 6-3 in the final.
Evans, the seeded second, was hoping to put the disappointment of his early exit in the previous week’s 18-and-under competition behind him. He reached the final without dropping a set and was the overwhelming favourite to win the title.
He began the final slowly against Berkshire’s Pauffley, though, and soon found himself 2-0 down. Undeterred, Evans went on to break back and levelled the scores at 2-2 and grew in confidence for the remainder of the set taking it 6-3.
Evans continued to dominate at the start of the second set, striking his single-handed backhand particularly sweetly. Despite being 3-0 down Pauffley continued to battle for every point and was able to break his opponent’s serve and save numerous break points on his own to stay in the match.
Evans was determined to close out the match in straight sets, however, and upped his game to take a 5-3 lead and duly held serve to seal victory.
Evans, who trains at the Loughborough Academy with Mark Taylor, said: “I had a bad week last week so it’s really nice to get a win here.
“I played much better early on in the week and although I probably wasn’t at my best today it’s always great to win a final.”
As of September, the 16-year-old from Birmingham will be based in Nottingham under the guidance of Martin Weston and is looking forward to playing in two Futures events in Nottingham before travelling to Finland and Denmark.
Speaking after the final, Dan said "I played much better early on in the week and although I probably wasn’t at my best today it’s always great to win a final."
-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 12:29, 2006-09-03
It's great that Dan will be working with Martin Weston who's also Jamie Baker's coach and one of the best performance coaches in the country. He won the LTA coach of the year award in 2005.
UltimateFlemingFan wrote: LTA report: As of September, the 16-year-old from Birmingham will be based in Nottingham under the guidance of Martin Weston and is looking forward to playing in two Futures events in Nottingham before travelling to Finland and Denmark.
-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 12:29, 2006-09-03
Does this mean that he will start playing Mens' tennis full time from now on?
It looks as though Dan is going to continue playing mainly junior tournaments and the occasional GB futures. He should have a good chance of getting a wc for the GB futures in Nottingham later this month as his new coach Martin Weston is based there. The tournaments in Finland and Denmark are junior ones.
I'd like to see him follow the Daniel Cox path and start playing a lot more futures qualies, not just in GB but abroad aswell. The standard and intensity of competition there is a lot higher than in G3 and G4 juniors and that way he'll improve a lot quicker. After a spell playing lots of qualies on Spanish red clay, Cox returned to the juniors and started beating top 100 players.
