It ain’t over until the timer runs out. On Friday night, Daniel Evans of Great Britain overcame a huge deficit to defeat Tommy Paul of the US 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers.
The 32-year-old Englishman got off to a disappointing start. He was broken three times by Paul and crumbled in the opening set without a break point in only 38 minutes.
“I don’t know what happened to me, but I really didn’t play very well for the first 40 minutes of the match,” admitted Evans. After that, I was more motivated, so I was able to hang in there and make it to the end. Excuse me, now I have to play doubles.”
After that setback, Evans broke Paul’s serve in the fifth game of the second set and never looked back.
The match was decided in the third game with a timely break by Evans. Again, he was able to keep the momentum going and close things out after 2 hours and 17 minutes of play.
Despite the result, and likely due to his dominance in the first set, Paul managed to amas 88 points compared to 85 for Evans, who’s now in the final four.
