Carrying on with his great grass court swing for the season, Dan Evans is flying the flag for Britain in the third round of Wimbledon on Saturday. He looks to have a good chance of progressing a step further too as he takes on Portugal’s Joao Sousa and that’s the match on Court One, immediately after Jo Konta’s fixture against Sloane Stephens. So the home crowd will be pumped up.
Joao Sousa v Dan Evans Odds*
Dan Evans 2/5
Joao Sousa 2/1
* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 5th, 2019 at 11:19 pm)
Evans continues fine form
Evans had a fantastic win in the second round of action at Wimbledon. He took out 18th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili in what has to be the highlight of Evans’s comeback. Evans is the British number three and has been working his way back up the rankings since a 12-month ban. He has done a wonderful job to knock on the door of the top fifty again and he has big grass court form behind him as well.
Evans kicked off his grass-court swing with the Surbiton title and then immediately went back out and landed on the title in Nottingham. Those were Challenger events but still, it showed a man in form. Back in February, he came from the 1st qualifying round all the way to the final of Delray Beach on the main ATP Tour where he lost the final to Radu Albot. But that shows what Evans is capable of.
He is looking for something special at SW19 to redeem himself after his ban. This already matches his best previous effort having fallen at the third round in 2016. Evans is at 3/1 odds to win 3-1 in Set Betting as the bookmakers have him as clear favourite to win this match* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 5th, 2019 at 11:19 pm). Can he delight the home crowds?
Head to Head
This will be the first meeting between the two players.
Will Sousa be able to beat Dan Evans?
Portuguese player Joao Sousa is only ranked a few places beneath Evans in the rankings. Heading into Wimbledon he was on a W11 L19 match record for the season. There really has not been a deep run of note from him at any point this season. He has just turned up at a lot of tournaments without taking much success.
Sousa has never made headway into any Grand Slam really. His best ever career finish in one of the majors was a fourth-round finish at the US Open last year. Prior to this season’s attempt at Wimbledon, he had four first-round exits and one third round exit at the event. It does look as if he is going to have to dig pretty deep to come up with an upset here.
Predictions
Evans is looking sharp at the moment and he will be facing a player who is more comfortable on clay than anywhere. This is easily a winnable match for Evans at the moment. With a good positive start behind him in this match, boosted by the home support, Total Sets 3 doesn’t look like a bad option at 6/5 odds* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 5th, 2019 at 11:19 pm).
