Dan Evans has shown some incredible escape tricks with Andy Murray at the Olympics, but this was his best trick yet – and a comeback that the great Scot himself would have been proud of.
In the longest match in US Open history, Evans trailed Karen Khachanov 4-0 in the deciding set but won six games in a row. It was a spectacular way to claim a third British victory on a fantastic day at the US Open for the transatlantic raiders.
First Katie Boulter came from behind to win, then Jack Draper eased through in just over an hour. And then Evans battled it out for five hours and 33 minutes against the towering Russian Khachanov, winning 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4.
Evans was visibly fading at 4-0 down in the final set, but inexplicably he chipped and volleyed and clawed his way back into the set, surpassing the record of five hours and 26 minutes set by Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang in the 1992 semifinals when Evans won his fifth game in a row.
Evans, 34, had not won a tour match since March and has even talked about a possible retirement, but what an achievement it was. He relishes the challenge of chopping a bigger man to pieces and has won all five of his meetings with Khachanov.
Dan Evans reached the second round of the US Open with a win over Karen Khachanov
34-year-old was on the verge of losing but fought back to advance to the second round
The epic five-and-a-half hour match set the record for the longest match in the competition’s history
Earlier, Boulter had suffered a nasty defeat on a beautiful day in New York, but had later declared herself ready to ‘make moves in bigger tournaments’. When the 28-year-old lost the opening set to qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich, it looked as if the disruption to her build-up by playing the Olympics would cost her dearly.
“My optimal schedule would have been to play Washington and Toronto and then you can start building,” Boulter said. “(Instead) I changed surfaces within three days – it was a complete risk to me and my body. I wanted to do it because I feel like I’m much stronger now than I’ve ever been and the Olympics was a great week for me. But this was a really important win.”
Boulter, who plays Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in tomorrow’s second round, admitted she was concerned about her form ahead of this tournament following the switch from Parisian clay to North American hard courts.
‘There’s always going to be that question in your mind: Am I ready? Am I going to play my best?
‘This race was about accepting that it might not be pretty, but that I had to find a way through it.
‘It’s important that I make steps in bigger tournaments. If I want to go from 30 to 20 (in the rankings), that’s a huge jump, and if I want to go from 20 to 10, that’s a huge jump. I’ll have to play better, but I have the game to do that.’
Boulter has yet to get beyond the third round of a Grand Slam and Draper’s best run was the fourth round here last year. So with all the talk of filling the void left by Andy Murray, it feels like time one of them pushed on at a major.
Katie Boulter was forced to come from behind in her win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich
Draper’s attempt to do so went smoothly as his opponent Zhizhen Zhang struggled through the second half of the match to retire 6-3, 6-0, 4-0 down.
The 27-year-old from Shanghai blamed a fall in training and said he wanted to save his strength for the Asian swing next month.
On paper it looked like a great match, but Draper didn’t complain about his victory and made it just over an hour later.
‘My last three Grand Slams, my first round matches were five sets, so it’s a nice feeling to have one that was a little bit easier and hopefully I can settle into it.
“It’s the best time I’ve hit the ball (in a while). It was a tough period after the grass, going to the clay and then straight to America. But the last few days I’m starting to feel the ball great.”
One player who didn’t have to worry about the transition from grass to clay was Emma Raducanu, who skipped the Olympics and began her campaign last night against fellow Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin.
Today Harriet Dart plays 19th-seeded Marta Kostyuk, after securing her victory late on Monday night with the help of a new addition to her coaching box: her mother Susie.
Jack Draper comfortably defeated Zhang Zhizhen to secure a place in the second round
Darts head coach Olga Morozova is reluctant to travel away from her home base at Wimbledon, so her mother has been included in the team since Cincinnati.
“I was just joking and saying we have a pretty good track record, so you might want to come out more often,” Dart said.
“She would never leave our family dog. The dog is absolutely number one for all of us – she misses him terribly.”