Good Evans takes his place back in the fold
TEENAGE talent Dan Evans is determined to shake off his bad boy image after returning to the LTA fold this week.
Evans hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons during the first week of Wimbledon when he was spotted out partying into the early hours ahead of an important doubles game the following day.
LTA chiefs took such a dim view that they dished out a four-month suspension.
Now the 18-year-old Warwickshire player has been welcomed back a month early and seen his privileges restored.
Evans still insists he was treated too harshly but, to his credit, the Hall Green player has not stood around and sulked.
Instead, Evans has been busy halving his world ranking which has been reduced from the 1100s to 560 in the latest list.
That has resulted from winning two Futures events in London and Wrexham, while reaching three more semi-finals at Ilkley, Nottingham and in Belgium.
Not content with that, Evans is planning to compete in a couple of Challenger events in Germany next month and then another at Jersey before the end of the year.
Eager Evans won’t stop there because he also has the Davis Cup match in mind next March.
A top British junior Evans said: “I did wrong, there’s no denying that. I stayed out a little too late but I still don’t think it was worthy of a four-month suspension.
“I didn’t think it was fair to take away my funding.
“They might have thought they were punishing me but really they punished my mum and dad who had to pay for me as a result.
“I know I’ve won a couple of 10,000 dollar tournaments, but I didn’t actually win that amount myself. That was the total package for the competitions.
“Maybe the suspension was the kick up the backside I needed.
“Now I want to prove the people who punished me were wrong.
“I said at the time of the ban that I wanted to come back with a ranking of 600. Well, I’ve done better than that.’’
* SORRY, I made an unforced error in in last week’s column.
Olton’s Scott and Lisa Key won the mixed veterans prize in the Warwickshire Restricted competition, not Knowle and Dorridge’s John Blenkinsop and Alison Isaacs. They were the runners-up.
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