Dan Evans beat South African lucky loser Kevin Anderson in a tight first round two-setter featuring only one break of serve; Evans will meet Cameron Norrie in an all-British last 16 match, with Norrie having beaten German's Dominik Koepfer in straight sets a day earlier
Thursday 30 September 2021 09:08, UK
Dan Evans booked an all-British second round match with Cameron Norrie at the San Diego Open on Thursday.
Evans, the eighth seed, overcame the 35-year-old former Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson - a lucky loser from qualifying - after a marathon first set tie-break, winning 7-6 (13-11) 7-5 in two hours and 18 minutes.
"It was a tough tie-break, I think I was a little fortunate to come through that one and the first set," Evans told the ATP. "But I played a good, solid second set and hung in pretty well. I was pretty happy with that."
Anderson, who made the Wimbledon final in 2018 and the US Open final in 2017, gave his 31-year-old opponent a torrid time on serve, pounding down 13 aces to Evans' five.
Both had a handful of chances to wrap up the first set in the tiebreaker. Anderson led at 6-5, 7-6 and 11-10, but Evans dug his way out of trouble and finally took the set by converting his own fourth set point.
British No 1 Evans gained his advantage by converting one of the two break points he had against Anderson's booming serve, while managing to save all four break points against his own.
The 22nd ranked Evans has played Norrie, ranked 28, only once on the ATP's main tour - in the first round of this year's Australian Open - with Norrie winning in four sets.
The pair also met in the final of a challenger series tournament in Aptos, California, in 2016, with Evans winning 6-3 6-4.
Top seed Andrey Rublev powered through to the quarter-finals with a straight sets win over American Brandon Nakashima.
The Russian world No 5 beat the American wild card 6-2 6-1 in just 62 minutes to set up a meeting with Argentinian sixth seed Diego Schwartzman, who fought back to beat South African Lloyd Harris 4-6 6-3 6-2.
Meanwhile in the WTA, Harriet Dart was knocked out of the Chicago Fall Tennis Classic in the second round as she lost in straight sets to 12th seed Veronika Kudermetova.
British No 4 Dart was defeated 6-3 6-4 by the Russian - ranked 120 places higher than her in the world at 31 - in an hour and 27 minutes.
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