Andy Murray does not begin his title bid here at the Aegon Champion-ships until tomorrow but the Scot will have been heartened by what he saw as one home hope heeded his call to step up to the big time.
While Scotland's Jamie Baker was outclassed by Benoit Paire of France and James Ward squandered two match points in a painful loss to Ivan Dodig, Dan Evans showed his big-match temperament with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Guido Pella of Argentina.
World No.75 Pella was good enough to reach round two of the French Open, before being walloped by Novak Djokovic, but Evans made light of the 202 places between them with a convincing performance.
A run last week to the quarter-finals in Nottingham, where he beat another top-100 player in American Ryan Harrison, gave Evans confidence and the mainstay of Britain's Davis Cup win over Russia in April responded once more.
Commitment and discipline problems off the court have often been cited as a reason why Evans has not made it towards the top 100 yet, and the 23-year-old Englishman said he had sorted himself out.
"The off-court stuff had to improve," he said. "It was pretty apparent I needed to sort all that rubbish off court out and that's what I have done. The NTC (National Tennis Centre, in London, where he trains and stays), have hammered that in quite a lot . . . checking up and seeing what I'm doing. It's been just what I needed."
Evans, who could now play Harrison again, said the 10.30pm curfew was also boosting his bank balance. "It's nice to not be waking up tired," he said. "Winning a tennis match is always better than going out [in the evening]. It's a lot cheaper, as well."
Yesterday's win will boost Evans' ranking towards the 250 mark but it is likely to be too late to earn him a wild card into the main draw at Wimbledon. The wild cards are due to be announced today and only players ranked inside the top 250 (Ward is the only one who qualifies) will be considered.
"I'm not guaranteed to get a wild card and I'm pretty confident going into qualies [qualifying]," Evans said. "I have heard they're pretty strict on the 250 rule."
Ward had Dodig, the world No.58, at his mercy when he led 7-6, 5-3 and 40-15 on his own serve but the Croat came up with some big tennis to break back and force a decider. Ward then served for victory a second time at 5-4 but faltered and Dodig took the deciding tie-break 7-2 to set up a match with his fellow Croat and the defending champion, Marin Cilic.
Ed Corrie, rewarded with a wild card for his efforts on the Futures Tour, acquitted himself well but lost 6-4, 7-6 to Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine, while Grigor Dimitrov, whose star has been rising, survived a massive scare before beating Dudi Sela of Israel in a deciding tie-break.
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