British No 3 Dan Evans has break up from coach Sebastian Prieto for the second – and doubtless ultimate – time after a kind stoop that has seen Evans win solely three ATP Tour matches this season.
The connection is known to have damaged down a few weeks in the past after an argument a couple of racket re-string job, though there’s clearly a wider context referring to Evans’s poor latest outcomes.
On Friday, Evans’s run to the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Primrose Challenger occasion in Bordeaux got here to an finish, by way of a 7-6, 6-4 defeat by the hands of the 19-year-old Chinese language participant Juncheng Shang.
This was an unkind draw, as Evans has lengthy struggled with cell left-handers like Shang, particularly after they can spin heavy forehands into his personal backhand wing. Even so, this straight-sets defeat by the hands of the world No 105 provided additional proof of Evans’s struggles this season and leaves his rating languishing someplace within the early 60s.
Prieto and Evans first teamed up in 2021, and labored collectively till final summer time’s grass-court season. At that time, Evans disbursed with Prieto – an Argentine who performed doubles on the tour and previously coached 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro – on the grounds that he was not accessible for sufficient tournaments.
By October, the 2 males had reconciled, but it surely appears like this newest break up will in all probability be terminal. On the time of writing, there was no indication of any new appointment, and Evans had taken Mason Recci – a former Futures participant who additionally comes from the Midlands – with him to Bordeaux as a hitting companion.
In the meantime, world No 1 Novak Djokovic has entered subsequent week’s occasion in Geneva as he searches for matches forward of the French Open, which begins in 10 days’ time.
Djokovic needed to endure concussion checks in Rome this week after he was hit on the top by a steel water bottle falling from the stands, however the choice to take a late wild card into Geneva suggests that there’s nothing severely unsuitable along with his well being.
However, Djokovic has solely performed six clay-court matches to this point this season – an unprecedented scenario within the build-up to Roland Garros. He’s prone to have a good time his thirty seventh birthday on the Geneva Open, the place the draw also needs to characteristic his near-exact modern Andy Murray. Had been they to finish up assembly within the first spherical, it might really feel like a flashback to the mid-2010s.
