Tennis player, stand-up comic, after-dinner speaker; Dan Evans can do the lot.
The 26-year-old’s performance at the Australian Open last night against Bernard Tomic, whom he beat to reach the last 16 of a grand slam for the first time, showed off his huge talent.
But it was his performance in his post-match press conference that was just as good as he discussed how he misses his late coach, hecklers in the crowd, his lack of a clothing contract and last but not least, a tale of how he was denied a photo with Kevin Pietersen.
Even for those who know Evans it was exceptional and he is winning a lot of fans on and off the court at Melbourne Park this week, if not Pietersen himself, who turned down the photo request earlier in the week when Evans spotted him at the Crown Casino.
“I think he was worse for wear,” Evans said of the former England cricketer, having called him out on Twitter the following day. “That was his excuse when he replied. Quite funny, isn't it, how things work out. He was my favourite cricketer until that point, genuinely was.
“It was so embarrassing, as well. He didn't even just say, “No”, he handed me off. I was nowhere near him either. Oh, God, yeah, it was really embarrassing.”
At the end of his win over Tomic, Evans pointed to the skies and later revealed he was thinking about his former coach, Julien Hoferlin, who died in April last year.
Just before his death, Hoferlin criticised Evans, describing tennis as “an interlude in his life”.
“Obviously everybody knows he wrote that article at the end in which he obviously wasn't that complimentary about me,” Evans said. “I think he said it was an interlude in my life. At the time he was probably right.
“I guess when you get a bit older, you look back at those sort of things. I just think it's a bit of a shame. I'm sure he sees it from somewhere, but just not on the right side, you know.”
Evans, who twice had his LTA funding removed in his younger days for bad behavior and lack of commitment, said Hoferlin’s words had inspired him to get his act together, prompting his rise from 772 in May 2015 to the verge of the top 40 after his win over Tomic.
“That was probably the main thing,” he said. “I was getting myself together before he died, but…those things sort of hit you.
“Those years I spent pretty much every day of my life with him, day in and day out, in my working life. So it's difficult. Obviously I've got Hilts (Mark Hilton) now, but it would be good if Jules was on the court.”
Evans then slammed some hecklers, one of whom was “in Tomic’s box” and who at one stage was coughing each time the Briton threw the ball up to serve.
“Listen, the match was great,” he said. “The whole thing was good. Win or lose, matches, you remember them. For three hours, you put on a good show like that. The atmosphere, even though it was against me, was great as well.”
As for the clothing contract, Evans said there had been a couple of calls expressing interest in the past couple of days but that he will stick to the plain white shirts he first bought locally earlier in the week.
“The company actually sent quite a lot to the locker room today. That was nice of them, yeah. There was no logo, so that was really nice of them as well. I've got quite a few now, and they were free.”
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