British tennis continues to tear up the script as Dan Evans beats Bernard Tomic

20 January 2017 10:24

Even people who did not follow British tennis knew the script.

Riches from the world's greatest tournament squandered on a bunch of never-going-to-make-its who endured national condemnation at Wimbledon every year and then disappeared back to the sport's unglamorous nether regions.

If players could emerge from war-torn countries with no funding or facilities and reach the top of the game, then surely producing a couple of top-100 players could not be that hard?

Okay, there was Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski, and then Andy Murray, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Except now the rulebook has been torn up in spectacular fashion and suddenly the sport is having to get used to an unfamiliar story. British tennis is a joke no longer.

Britain has not just one or two but six top-100 players, two of them in the top 10 and, after this tournament, two more in the top 50.

Dan Evans' exploits in reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open after beating Bernard Tomic are just the latest example of British players overachieving on the big stage, when the opposite had seemed so entrenched.

Front and centre of the story is Murray.

The Scot's achievements are extraordinary but much about him is reassuringly normal. Nothing about Murray off the court shouts superstar, and his approachability and genuine interest in helping other British players has done much to fuel the improvement.

Breaking the top 100 and achieving success at grand slams or on the main tour had seemed such an insurmountable barrier for British players.

But how became why not as first Heather Watson and Laura Robson and then Johanna Konta, Kyle Edmund, Evans and Naomi Broady made the leap.

Jamie Murray, meanwhile, rose to the top of the doubles world and, most improbably, Britain conjured up a Davis Cup title. Winning has become a habit.

Already in a season less than three weeks old, Konta has won a WTA Tour title, both Murray brothers and Evans have reached ATP Tour finals and now Britain has two players in the fourth round of a grand slam with Konta still to play her third-round match.

It is nearly 40 years since British players last achieved such results, when the strength in depth in the sport was nothing like it is now.

Interestingly, Britain's leading men and women have all taken very different paths, and the lesson for the much-maligned Lawn Tennis Association - which it appears to be taking on board - is to be facilitators rather than dictators in this most individual of sports.

There can be no resting on laurels, for a look below the current stand-out crop shows top-class prospects remain very thin on the ground.

But a brief rub of the eyes in disbelief is certainly permitted. These are heady days indeed.

Source: PA