Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

On the eve of Britain’s most important Davis Cup tie for 37 years, captain Leon Smith sprung a massive surprise by opting to name world no.300 Dan Evans as his second string singles player to take on Australia.

The 25 year-old, whose commitment to the sport has often been in doubt, is currently Britain’s eighth highest player on the ATP World Tour rankings and little more than a couple of months ago was ranked outside the world’s top 750.  Evans once admitted: “I don’t train enough. I’m pretty bad at my job.”

However Smith believes Evans, who has won 29 of his most recent 33 matches, most at Futures level, is regarded by Smith as a better bet to face world no.23 Bernard Tomic in today’s second rubber than the out-of-form James Ward or Kyle Edmund who suffered a fall in practice on Tuesday and although was cleared of suffering any serious damage by an MRI scan.

Evans beat Tomic at the US Open two years ago and Smith said: “Dan has elements in his game that can cause and did cause Bernard problems when they played.

“He’s played a lot recently, and I’ve got confidence that he can step up to this level despite the fact that he’s not been playing many guys in the top 100. It wasn’t an easy decision but, having thought about it a lot, I think the fact that Dan has played an awful lot of tennis this summer, winning a lot of matches and that really helps in terms of a lot of confidence.”

Tomic, newly reinstated to the Australian team after being suspended for the quarterfinal against Kazakhstan after making derogatory comments about former captain Patrick Rafter, admitted he still thinks about that second round defeat in New York. “I was 6-1, 3-love up and then couldn’t make a ball after that,” he said. “Still we were all surprised to hear the news he [Evans] had been called back into their team.”

And current Australian captain Wally Masur said of Smith’s decision to gamble with Evans: “If he has got it right he will be hailed as a genius, if he’s wrong there will be a long queue ready to stick it to him.”

World no.3 Andy Murray is set to start the action today against Aussie teenager Thanasi Kokkinakis and former British captain John Lloyd maintained: “Andy losing to Kevin Anderson’s in the US Open’s fourth round. It gave him a week at home to recover and although Leon Smith would never admit it, I will bet he was delighted Andy lost early.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.