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Dan Evans Indian Wells 2021

Dan Evans calls for Davis Cup rule change after Great Britain knocked out by Germany


Great Britain’s Dan Evans says he “can’t prepare to play two people’ and calls for the Davis Cup to change the nomination deadline for the opening singles ties.

Evans thinks that the deadline for player nominations for the opening singles matches of the Davis Cup knock-out rounds should be submitted the night before the match, as opposed to the current deadline of just one hour before.

25th ranked Evans was faced with a surprise in his quarter-finals singles match when he played Peter Gojowczyk instead of Dominik Koepfer whom he expected to face. Evans beat Gojowczyk in straight sets regardless, winning 6-2 6-1, but still feels the rules need to be changed.

Speaking after his match with Gojowczyk, Evans said “maybe Dominik [Koepfer] was hurt, or maybe they thought ‘you know, I’d beat a left-hander, lose to a right-hander’. We’ll never know, I guess. I’m sure they had their reasons.

“This is sort of the beauty of this competition. I don’t think it’s particularly fair on the number two [player] that you can change it an hour before. I think it should go the night before, in my opinion. But that’s my opinion. You have to deal with those things.

“I can’t prepare to play two people. Can’t do all the stuff the night before. We guessed it would be Koepfer, so I prepared to play Koepfer. But I can’t do that twice over. I’ll be up all night, which for the quality of tennis for the event, I think it should be the night before.

“I just think it would be a little better for preparation and stuff. But then, on the other side of it, it is pretty cool that you can sub somebody in and it is a different way to look at it. Depends which way you look at it.”

Great Britain eventually went on to lose their remaining quarter-final ties against Germany as Cameron Norrie lost to Jan-Lennard Struff and Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski were beaten by Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz.

As such, Germany have progressed to the Davis Cup semi-finals for the first time since 2007 and will play either the Russian Tennis Federation or Sweden.

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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.