The ObserverTennisDan Evans admitted in February: ‘I made a lot of wrong choices when I was younger,’ but his positive test for cocaine follows two years when he had at last focused on his tennisDan Evans has an Oscar Wilde tattoo on his left forearm that reads: “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future”.
This article could stop right there, except there are a few more nuances in the life of the player everyone knows affectionately as “Evo”, the scallywag from Hall Green in Birmingham who has just thrown his career in the bin after being busted for cocaine.
He will probably be banned for two years, maybe longer. If he wants to play again, he will be 29. By that time, the sport at which he has a rare talent will have changed considerably and he might think it not worth the candle to get back in shape and give it another go. He will have no ranking, no wildcards – just a wild past and some wonderful memories.
There are some – no, many – who will write Evans off as disrespectful of his talent. Andrew Castle, the former British No1 who had his own run-in with the tennis establishment (although for no bigger crime than wearing an anti-poll tax slogan on his T-shirt), put it most bluntly: “He has chucked his career away. A massive mistake. Foolish.”
John Lloyd, once his Davis Cup captain, said: “The bottom line is how many chances do you get?”
Twice in his youth, the Lawn Tennis Association withdrew Evans’s funding because of his night-time escapades. He lost a junior doubles match at Wimbledon in 2008 after leaving a local nightclub at 3am with his playing partner, Daniel Smethurst. In 2010, he was the victim of an LTA cost-cutting cull, his rebellious nature no doubt counting him against him.
Two years ago, on the weekend of St Patrick’s Day, his career reached what friends and critics alike regarded as its most significant turning point. He failed to turn up for a Futures match on the Wirral, later saying that he was out with friends and had lost track of time. It was up there with the dog ate my homework as an excuse. Nobody was much impressed.
But Evans did something about it this time. He trained harder, took his trade more seriously and started winning more matches.
He rose quickly through the rankings from 688 into the top 100 and beyond, as the soft hands and the quick eye for an opening clicked with pleasing synchronicity. He began to beat players that were once on another level: Marin Cilic in the Australian Open this year on his way to the fourth round of a slam for the first time, building on probably the best performance of his career, when he held match point against Stan Wawrinka in the US Open the previous September. Everything now seemed possible for Evo.
As he told the Times on the eve of leading the Great Britain Davis Cup team against Canada in Ottawa in February: “I obviously made a lot of wrong choices when I was younger. I ended up getting there in the end. I let a few people down on the way, hopefully now I am repaying them.”
In March, he reached a career high of 41. He had a good amount of money in the bank – $1.3m in career earnings, $405,918 of that this year alone – a sponsor, a girlfriend and the warm support of thousands of British tennis fans.
I recall meeting him in a New York bar the night he lost to Wawrinka. He was with his father, David, and a few friends from Birmingham. He had given it his best shot, although he rued butchering a simple smash that would have carried him to a memorable triumph over the eventual champion, and he was relaxing in the glow of another fine run. He had maybe one or two bottles of lager over the course of the evening. He seemed very much to have reined in his irresponsibility.
But, after years of coping with struggle, he now had the challenge of meeting higher expectations. When he was regarded as no more than a talented but wayward prospect capable of occasional brilliant things, the pressure was different: then he had a career to build. Now that he had delivered on that talent, he had to keep his discipline to stay at another level. He had to keep winning bigger matches or a regular basis. There could be no more running home to the comfort of the West Warwickshire Sports Club in Solihull and the acclaim of his friends. Now he was a proper professional tennis player.
Then, for whatever reason, he made the sort of mistake not uncommon among athletes who are feted and admired. It was a drastic lapse in judgment.
It will be a desperate shame if Evo’s last match turns out to be the quarter‑final at Surbiton two weeks ago when he retired with a calf injury while leading 6-3, 4-2 against Dustin Brown. It was a Challenger event, the sort of tournament he played so often in his wilderness years, honing his skills far from the glare of the critics, in front of hardly anyone but his mates and family. It was where he often felt most comfortable, just hitting a ball.
He may not have gone too deep at Wimbledon but he would have given it a shake. It will gall Evans to dwell on it but if the exciting young German Alexander Zverev delivers on his potential at the All England Club he will still have on his résumé a defeat by Evans at last year’s US Open. On that day Evo was that good.
When Evans took that cocaine in Barcelona in April, before his first match in the tournament (he would go on to reach the third round on his least favourite surface, losing in two tight sets to Dominic Thiem, at the time the world No9), he might not have given a thought for the consequences. It was, he insisted on Friday, unrelated to tennis – and that might be his only defence when he goes before an International Tennis Federation tribunal at a date to be determined.
If he were of a mind, he might look his inquisitors in the eye and quote another apt Wildean witticism: “I can resist everything except temptation.”
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