Yahoo Finance Dan Evans’ Monte Carlo run goes on with victory over David Goffin
Dan Evans followed up his brilliant upset of Novak Djokovic at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters by beating David Goffin to reach the semi-finals.
The British number one stunned world number one Djokovic on Thursday for the biggest win of his career and ensured there was no let down as he battled to a 5-7 6-3 6-4 victory over 11th seed Goffin.
Evans has now earned as many tour-level clay-court victories and wins at Masters tournaments this week as in the rest of his career combined and could surpass his career-high ranking of 26 next week.
First ATP Masters 1000 semi-final awaits 🙌
Your time, Dan Evans! pic.twitter.com/jrNKvkYeP6
— ATP Tour (@atptour) April 16, 2021
Evans told Amazon Prime Video: “Just to come back today and back it up was probably the best thing about it. It probably wasn’t my best display of my game. I felt I got dragged into his game quite a bit and I was a bit far back.
“I thought I did a good job in the third to keep going point after point and hang in some games which I was probably a little lucky to come through.”
As he had against Djokovic, Evans began superbly but Goffin found his range on his forehand at the end of the opening set, recovering from 3-5 to take it with a run of four games in a row.
But he could not maintain that level and Evans forged ahead early in the second set, this time holding onto his advantage.
The 30-year-old has a rare ability to bring out his best at the biggest moments and he dug in brilliantly to save four break points at 4-4 in the deciding set – he saved 15 of 17 during the match.
Goffin could not show similar fortitude and a wild final shot drew a huge roar from Evans as he celebrated setting up a last-four encounter with Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The Greek has won their two previous encounters easily, and Evans said: “He has handed it to me the last two times we have played. I will change some things a bit, be a bit more aggressive, that is the only way I can play.
“If I get dragged behind (the baseline) like I did today, with all due respect to David, he will come in more and knock the volleys off a bit better, so I need to be the one doing that.”
