Stan Wawrinka saves match point to beat unseeded Brit Dan Evans after US Open third round scare
Third seeded Swiss saves a match point before squeezing past unheralded Briton in five sets
Third seed Stan Wawrinka saved a match point at the US Open on Saturday before squeezing past unheralded Briton Dan Evans in five sets to reach the fourth round.
The Swiss faced match point at 5-6 in the fourth-set tiebreak but won it 10-8 and then raced through the final set to clinch a 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (6-7), 7-6 (7-6), 6-2 victory.
“To finish like that, I’m really happy to get through. It wasn’t easy for me to find my best game.”
World number 64 Evans, who was ranked as low as 772 in May of last year, stunned Wawrinka as he took the match to the two-time grand slam champion in a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium.
The 26-year-old, trying to reach the last 16 of a grand slam for the first time, broke in the 10th game to take the first set and though Wawrinka hit back to level the match, the Briton took the third in a tiebreak.
But Wawrinka saved it with a volley winner, and that proved the last gasp for Evans as the Swiss, a semi-finalist in New York in two of the past three years, prevailed in the tiebreak and then dominated the fifth set.
The Swiss will next play Ilya Marchenko of Ukraine.