‘Nuts’ Dan Evans banishes demons in shock win over Frances Tiafoe

Dan Evans plugs away on the challenger circuit, fighting thoughts that his struggle is “deluded” or “nuts”, at the bottom of the world’s top 200 for occasions such as this. The 35-year-old kicked off the men’s singles at the Queen’s Club with a shock 7-5, 6-2 victory over Frances Tiafoe, the world No13, at Andy Murray Arena. “It’s been a long time since I played that sort of level,” he said.

Evans reached the third round of the US Open last year, 12 months after he was at a career-high 21 in the world rankings, but has spent most of 2025 off the radar. In rare forays at the elite level, he failed to make it through qualifying at the Australian Open and French Open, and his only main-draw match — in Dubai four months ago — ended in a comprehensive defeat.

“I still believe I’ve got that tennis in me, and I still believe I can do good things inside the top 100,” he said. “But believing it and it happening is a lot different. That’s why I wake up in the morning to go to practice, to go to training. You know how some days you think: are you deluded, are you nuts, have you still got it, still got it in your legs? I think today showed I still have a bit left.

This was Tiafoe’s first match since the French Open EPA

“The bottom line is I love playing tennis. I love the game. I have never played tennis for the money . . . it’s more for the, you know, the accolades of winning on the tour and that’s it. That’s where I want to be.

“Even now I still want to be there. It’s not easy going to these challengers and not playing your best tennis. That’s the worst thing. If I was going there and winning some of them . . . but I have definitely not done that this year, and that’s the toughest part.”

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Evans lost his first match at the Birmingham challenger to Murphy Cassone before improvements at the Libema Open in Netherlands last week. For Tiafoe, this was a first outing on grass since he reached the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros. Rust may have been a factor, but it is certainly not the case that Queen’s habitually brings the best out of Evans. He had lost his first-round matches at the past three editions — as well as in 2019, 2018 and 2016.

Last year, Evans said he hoped he wouldn’t require wild cards to play at Wimbledon. Now he will need just that, and thinks he deserves one. “I didn’t want to take a wild card off a younger guy, but I don’t think any younger players have been ripping up stumps to knock me out of the wild-card spot,” he said.

Evans won 76 per cent of points on his first serve, and won four of six break points, compared with Tiafoe’s one from four ANDY RAIN/EPA

“Tennis is not just about the grass-court season in Britain. It’s great that we’ve got an amazing set of events, but there are other tournaments, and I haven’t been good enough at those other tournaments, but I’ve still been professional, still train day in, day out, so I hope that’s enough to get me a wild card. If not, I’ll go through qualifiers.”

There was a noble reason behind Evans’s sinking ranking last summer. He dropped more than 100 places to partner the retiring Andy Murray at the Paris Olympics, rather than defend his title at the Citi Open in Washington (where he beat Tiafoe in the quarter-finals). “The Olympics was one of the best things I have ever done,” he said. “To be part of that, the atmosphere in those matches, I’ll never forget.”

Evans is a critic of those who suggest that there is too much tennis on tour. Having played on the fringes of late, he understands how important it is to most professionals. “Anybody outside the top 15 doesn’t have those views, because the bottom line is anybody outside the top 15 needs to play every week,” he said. “We can’t just listen to the top guys on scheduling. Just because they are better than us at tennis doesn’t mean their voice is louder to talk.”

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He was back on court in the afternoon for his doubles pairing with Henry Searle, losing 6-4, 7-5 against Rohan Bopanna and Sander Gillé. Cameron Norrie lost his singles 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 6-1 against Jakub Mensik, as his improvement on clay stumbled on grass. Jacob Fearnley joined Evans in the second round with a 6-2, 6-4 win over the Australian Alex Bolt.

Over the past three years, Norrie’s ranking has declined steadily from a high of No8 to the cusp of leaving the top 100 last month. He has begun to turn his lot around, knocking out Daniil Medvedev and Fearnley to reach the last 16 at the French Open. Switching to grass, Norrie failed to capitalise on two set points in the opener, and then raced through the second set, but Mensik, the tall 19-year-old from the Czech Republic showed why he is one of the stars of the sport, already a member of the top 20 after his breakthrough title at the Miami Masters.

Carlos Alcaraz and Jack Draper headline Tuesday’s play on the main court, with first-round matches against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Jenson Brooksby respectively.

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