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Dan Evans of Great Britain beat Alex de Minaur of Australia 6-1 2-6 6-4 in a Davis Cup match of their Group B tie in Manchester on Wednesday, September 13. The match lasted for more than two hours, as the 33-year-old British player secured a hard-fought win.
Great Britain later went on to win the tie 2-1 to make a good start to their campaign. Australia will face France on Thursday and Great Britain will take on Switzerland on Friday in their next respective group ties.
On that note, let us take a look at four things that stood out in the match:
#1. Evans used the backhand slice extensively:
Evans played the crosscourt backhand slice extensively in the match to take pace off the ball. However, de Minaur was not able to play the inside-in forehand as the subsequent shot on most of the occasions and went for the inside-out forehand instead.
It gave the Brit enough time to react and he imposed himself with his powerful forehand. As a result, Evans dominated most of the rallies from the baseline in the first set.
#2. De Minaur committed a lot of unforced errors in the first set:
The 24-year-old Australian committed a number of unforced errors by hitting the ball wide of the court. It gave Evans the opportunity to break his opponent twice in the first set and race to a 1-0 lead. The Brit looked by far the more dominant player at the end of the first set.
#3. De Minaur bounced back in the second set, as Evans started committing errors:
De Minaur did to Evans in the second set what the Brit had done to him in the first. The Australian became more disciplined in his shot-making and forced Evans to commit more errors as the set progressed.
The Australian dominated most of the rallies in which he played the inside-in forehand or down-the-line backhand in response to Evans’ slices. De Minaur also hit a few wonderful backhand passes and broke Evans twice to win the second set and thereby draw level.
#4. Evans displayed great form in the final set:
Evans looked the more aggressive player in the third set, repeatedly venturing forward to hit winners from the mid-court and forecourt.
He raced to a 4-0 lead by breaking de Minaur twice, but the Australian then broke back to reduce the deficit to 3-5. Still, he could not stop Evans from serving the match out in the 10th game.
