Emma Raducanu's fightback in vain but Dan Evans stuns another star

Times

3 days ago

Emma Raducanu's up-and-down preparations for Wimbledon ended on a slightly deflating note as she was knocked out of Eastbourne by the Australian Maya Joint, but Dan Evans's recent resurgence continued as he defeated the American Tommy Paul to record his second win against a top-20 player in as many weeks.
Raducanu's was an extraordinary match in which she showed remarkable resilience, fighting back from 2-5 down in the final set and surviving three attempts by Joint to serve out victory.
When Raducanu won the first point against serve in the tie-break to lead 4-3, it seemed the momentum was with her, but Joint recovered brilliantly to win four of the final five points.
It means that Raducanu goes into Wimbledon having reached just two quarter-finals this season, at Queen's and in Miami, and still struggling with a back issue. However, she said that she intends to 'step on the court' at Wimbledon regardless.
'I've just been managing it,' she added. 'Hopefully I can recover. I still have a few days before Wimbledon, so I'm looking forward to kind of recovering, and hopefully it settles.
'It bothers me. I wouldn't say it's like I can't move. Like a lot of athletes, we all carry something that we're managing and playing through, but it's OK, I can play, and I can still put out some pretty decent tennis.'
Indeed, after a difficult period in which she also received some bad personal news that left her visibly emotional after her previous match, there was much to credit the British No1 in this performance against one of the rising young players in women's tennis, the 19-year-old world No51.
Raducanu recovered strongly from losing the first two games in the first set, but when she slipped 2-0 behind in the second, it seemed to signal a much more decisive shift. Joint played very well, using her powers of dogged retrieval to force Raducanu to constantly play an extra shot, and often drawing the error.
At one stage Joint won 11 in a run of 14 games, but, looking for only her third win against a top-50 player, she tightened up on the brink of victory, and Raducanu enacted a thrilling fightback. She broke for 5-3, then again to love to get back to 5-5, then dropped her own serve, before summoning another brilliant return game to force the tie-break.
But Joint, the second-youngest player in the top 80, showed great character to get over the line, winning 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).
Evans, meanwhile, has tumbled down the rankings over the past two years, but he, by contrast, goes into Wimbledon — where he has a wild-card entry into the main draw — on the crest of a wave, having added the scalp of world No13 Paul to that of Frances Tiafoe, who was also ranked 13th when Evans beat him at Queen's last week.
Showing his trademark court-craft, 35-year-old Evans, who has spoken about wanting to make the most of the time that he has left in his career, came through a topsy-turvy match to knock out Paul, the second seed, and a player of significant grass-court pedigree having won Queen's and reached the Wimbledon quarter-final last year.
After the first two sets were shared, Evans broke early in the decider, but was pegged back at 4-3. But he then broke Paul again and served out to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 and earn a quarter-final against another American, Jenson Brooksby.
A tearful Evans told the BBC: 'I know I've done the work and once I got some confidence, I knew that the work was in the bank… A good friend said, 'If the door opens and you're ready, you'll walk through it, if you're not, you won't,' and there's no truer word.'
Evans is joined in the quarter-finals by Billy Harris, the British men's No4, who was impressive in his 6-3, 6-4 victory over the Italian Mattia Bellucci. He will meet the fourth seed, the French world No20 Ugo Humbert, and could play Evans in the semi-finals.
Earlier, Jodie Burrage became the second British player this week to lose to the reigning Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova after holding multiple match points. Krejcikova, who had saved two match points against Harriet Dart on Tuesday, fell 0-40 down serving at 5-6 in the third set, but Burrage could not take any of her three opportunities, missing a down-the-line pass on the first of them, losing 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3).
Jacob Fearnley showed glimmers of an excellent grass-court game in reaching the Queen's quarter-final and dispatching the world No24 Flavio Cobolli on Tuesday, but he was disappointingly off his best as he succumbed 6-3, 6-1 to the American Marcos Giron. And Fran Jones, the fifth-ranked British woman, who was on Raducanu's coaching bench, also went out, losing 6-2, 6-1 against Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska.
Joint was not the only youngster to impress. Alexandra Eala, 20, of the Philippines, the third-youngest player in the top 80, has already beaten Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys this season, and she continued her rise by beating the third seed, Jelena Ostapenko, in three sets after Ostapenko retired with a foot injury.
Meanwhile, at Roehampton, Hamish Stewart and Oliver Tarvet advanced to the final round of Wimbledon qualifying, and are now just one win away from a place in the main draw.