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Evans sets his sights on rare Top 10 win in Sydney

Jake Davies
Tennis

 

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By Jake Davies

  • Evans is the last British male remaining at the Sydney Open.
  • Dan Evans vs Dominic Thiem [1]
  • Evans aiming for his first ATP semi-final in three years
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Dan Evans continues his improving form as he has the top seed Dominic Thiem in his sights.

 

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Dan Evans vs Dominic Thiem [1] – H2H: First meeting

British No.3 Dan Evans has had quite the week in Sydney. After coming through a tough struggle with Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, he also upset Spain’s Marcel Granollers and qualified for the quarter-final stage where he will play the No.1 seed Dominic Thiem. Evans’ steady progress on the Challenger circuit with sporadic flashes of brilliance at some of the majors has helped boost his ranking up to No.67.

Even with the notable wins over Kei Nishikori and Bernard Tomic at the US Open, Evans has struggled to make the latter stages of ATP events. Most of his success has been on the Challenger level. The last time Evans managed to make the semi-final of an ATP event was at the ATP Zagreb tournament back in 2014.

The Brit has never beaten a Top 10 player and Thiem is one of the next generation of players that has already climbed inside the World’s Top 10. The Austrian super talent is tipped for greatness by many and already has made the semi-final of a major at the age of 22, which is hard to find in modern tennis, where the great success at majors normally comes at an older age. This illustrates the sort of talent that we are seeing even in the early stages of his development.

The Austrian is coached by well-known tennis coach Gunter Bresnik, who demands a lot from his players with gruelling fitness regimes and also educates his student on the mentality required to be one of the great champions. Bresnik’s influence can be seen when Thiem takes to a tennis court each and every week.

Evans could give Thiem plenty of stress in this match up, but Thiem’s threatening groundstrokes from the back of the court should prove too much to contend with and I expect the Austrian to come through in straight sets.

Prediction: Thiem in two sets.

 

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