Dan Evans is your Murray River Open winner after beating Felix Auger Aliassime of Canada quite comfortably 6-2, 6-3. The Canadian is now 0-7 in ATP finals and has yet to taste victory while the Brit is now 1-2 in finals.
British dominance
The first two games of the match was a tightly contested battle between two players who were trying to reach the finish line for the very first time. The world number 21 imploring his aggressive game style trying to win quick points while the Brit stayed back and waited for the Canadian to make mistakes.
That’s exactly what happened as the number three seed was playing with a bigger margin of error and a 2-2 he got the first break opportunity of the match and would break winning the point with a stunning passing shot up the line with the Canadian at the net.
At 4-2 Evans had a chance to go up a double break after the Canadian threw in an untimely double fault and the following point hit another unforced error to give the Britt a chance to serve for the first set.
He did just that serving out the first set to take it 6-2 and was one set away from his maiden ATP title.
Evans finishes strong
The second set was almost like the first with both players holding serve in their opening service games before the Montreal native found himself facing two break points and was broken thanks to another error.
Once again at 4-2 Evans had a chance to go up a double break and potentially serve for the title, on the first opportunity the Canadian was up to the task of saving it but on the second he was broken as he sent another forehand long.
Evans served for the match at 5-2 but nerves seemed to creep into his game and the number three seed got a break point to get one of the breaks back and he would break to make it 5-3 and potentially was on the verge of a comeback.
The very next game the Canadian faced a match point but was able to save it before facing another one and this time the Britt didn’t disappoint finishing the match with a volley winner to take the match and the title.
“It was a good day. I played well. I’m just happy with the week. Good preparation going into next week,” Evans said following his win.
“I didn’t have a great two weeks’ practice. I played okay, but it was difficult and sort of moved away from the sort of things I was used to working on whilst trialing with a new coach. It seemed the start of this week, I really set in stone that I would get back to what I was good at, and it really reinforced my game style and my game plan, and I never really wavered from that.”
Felix Auger Aliassime won’t have to wait long to get back into action as he is scheduled to face Cedrick Marcel Stebe tomorrow in the first round of the Australian Open.
