WASHINGTON (THE WASHINGTON POST) – Event workers were sweeping up trash by the time play resumed in the final match on the final night of the DC Open. The sun had long since set, the courts were open to anyone strolling by, and all the overpriced food left in the fridges had been given away to the dedicated souls who stuck around to see a men’s singles champion crowned. That amounted to about 120 people who dotted the lower bowl at the main court at Rock Creek Park Tennis Centre on Sunday night – including the players’ coaching teams.
Dan Evans and Tallon Griekspoor had fought long odds to get here, so they could handle a two-hour delay amid thunderstorms. Evans, after all, has built up plenty of patience. When he beat Griekspoor, 7-5, 6-3, for the second title of his 17-year career, the 33-year-old from England became the oldest champion in Washington since 35-year-old Jimmy Connors won in 1988.
Evans’s other ATP title had come in 2021 at a 250-level tournament in Melbourne, Australia. Sunday was each player’s first appearance in an ATP 500-level tournament final; it was a nearly unthinkable achievement for Evans, who was coming from an early-round loss in Atlanta where he had squandered three match points. That was just the latest in a long string of recent disappointments. Before this week, he had not won a tour-level match since April.
“You try not to let emotions get in the way when you’re in the tournament, and I was, you know, confident after the second round that I was playing well,” Evans said. “But I had to keep telling myself it was match by match, and not so long ago I wasn’t playing great. It was a good effort mentally to just stay in the present and keep fighting for each point, and I did a great job of that this week.”
Messages from loved ones flooded in despite the late hour across the pond.
“I’m hearing from friends that haven’t had a lot to celebrate lately,” Evans said. “They have gone out the last three nights. One of our friends has a bar, so they kept that open. I’m sure they’ll have a few drinks still now.”
An Evans-Griekspoor final was hardly what D.C. tennis fans expected at the tournament’s outset. But both took advantage of a wonky schedule that, because of a rainout Thursday night, required men’s singles players to play their round-of-16 and quarterfinal matches Friday. Evans upset 10th-ranked Frances Tiafoe in each player’s second match of the day.
On Saturday, Griekspoor upset ninth-ranked Taylor Fritz to advance to the final. It was the Dutchman’s first win in 10 tries against an opponent in the top 10.
Evans and Griekspoor played with the hunger of underdogs in their late-round matches – Evans most of all. Ranked 30th in the world, he took confidence from outrunning the lightning-quick Tiafoe on Friday, then brought the same impressive defence against 20th-ranked Grigor Dimitrov in a Saturday semi-final to become the first British finalist in Washington since Andy Murray in 2006.
Griekspoor is on the rise. The 27-year-old with a whopping serve has won two titles this year and reached a career-high ranking of Number 29 in June. He came to Washington ranked 37th.
“I couldn’t have really thought about this at the start of the week,” Evans said during the on-court trophy ceremony after the win.”…Tallon, sorry, but you’ve had enough this year.”
Evans had to survive 12 aces from Griekspoor, countering his big opening points by playing a steadier game. He didn’t drop his serve and peppered in 29 winners to the Dutchman’s 26, including an impressive defensive lob to give himself three break points in the eighth game of the second set, then take a 5-3 lead.
When he won match point just after 9 pm, the clock on the court read 1 hour, 41 minutes but nearly four hours had passed since they had begun. Just as Evans started to celebrate – running around the court and yelling like a madman, stirring the scant crowd that remained – rain began to fall again.
