The thing with individual sports is, there is nowhere to hide. In team games, the odd off day can be forgiven as collective efforts help to get the job done.
Life is much easier when playing the role of a small piece in a much bigger puzzle – rather than being the only one required to complete any given task.
When it comes to tennis, golf, darts or any other pastime where performers walk out on their own, the spotlight can prove difficult to avoid.
Unlike in football, rugby or cricket where the cream of any given crop are forever bunched together, world rankings in solitary pursuits remain painfully personal.
Favourite
That #USOpen winning feeling 👊
— LTA (@the_LTA) September 1, 2023
Dan Evans has reached the @USOpen 3rd round for a 6⃣th time#BackTheBrits 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/DffJW7hFVh
That is all well and good when you are Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, with the former currently the 10/11 favourite in tennis odds from Betfair to emerge victorious at the 2023 US Open while the latter has 22 Grand Slam crowns to his name.
What about everybody else? When the best of the best appear to be untouchable and continue to move out of reach, how do you set about clinging on to their coattails?
That is a challenge that Birmingham-born Dan Evans has grown accustomed to taking on down the years. He has always been something of a mercurial talent, with full potential never quite unlocked.
It took a while for the message to get through with Evans, with there a fine line to be trodden between good and great, but it appears to be registering now.
A steady rise up the standings in men’s tennis now has the Hall Green native knocking on the most distinguished of doors. He has not managed to force it open as yet, but the trickiest of locks continues to be picked at.
Evans rose to No.21 in the world after claiming his first ATP 500 title in Washington. That success was the perfect warm-up for another Grand Slam outing in New York. There was to be no run through to the latter stages at Flushing Meadows, with rankings progress stalling as a result.
Momentum has been established, though, and there is belief where doubts once dominated.
Evans said on the back of claiming silverware in the American capital: “I wasn’t playing very well and I wasn’t happy with my game. To do the work I’ve done and to stick with it and come through is amazing.”
Stunning
YOUR CITI OPEN CHAMPION IS DAN EVANS!! 👊💪🔥🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/QSyn6ZTHqH
— Dan Evans Fan Page (@DanEvansFanPage) August 7, 2023
A seven-game losing streak had taken Evans to Washington, with there obvious flaws that needed to be ironed out in his game.
He completed that process in stunning style and played with a smile on his face in New York even when the sporting gods were seemingly conspiring against him. He is playing for fun again – which makes him a dangerous opponent.
Breaking through the barrier that continues to separate him from the best 20 players on the planet – with only the elite able to occupy such a standing – has proved impossible to this point, but there is every reason to believe that said glass ceiling will be smashed into a million pieces at some stage.
