Great Britain's Jack Draper progressed to the second round of the BMW Open in Munich with a battling three-set beating of Czech Vit Kopriva on Monday.
Bidding to bounce back from his early Monte Carlo Masters exit at the hands of Hubert Hurkacz, Draper recovered from a second-set reverse to prevail 6-1 5-7 6-4 in a weather-affected match.
Rain forced the postponement of the first-round battle for approximately three hours, but the delay had little impact on 22-year-old Draper, who won five games on the spin during an emphatic opening set.
The world number 46 would seemingly cruise into the last 16 with minimal trouble as he broke for a 2-1 lead in the second set, although two wasted chances for the double break in the fifth game was the catalyst Kopriva required for a comeback.
The 26-year-old clawed his way back into the contest at 3-3 before converting his first set point on the Draper serve in the 12th game, and neither man covered themselves in glory while serving at the start of the decider, where three breaks were shared in the opening three games.
Two of those crucial openings came Draper's way, though, and despite a surprise break to love while serving for the match for the first time, the sixth seed quickly made amends, punching his ticket to round two on a slick cross-court backhand.
It's three opening round defeats in a row for Dan Evans 😬
— Sky Sports Tennis (@SkySportsTennis) April 15, 2024
He has been knocked out of the Barcelona Open in straight sets by Brandon Nakashima ❌ pic.twitter.com/7cecKDTxJj
Italian qualifier Francesco Passaro or German wild card Rudolf Molleker will await Draper in the second round, but Evans did not share his compatriot's fate in the Barcelona Open, where his clay-court struggles were prolonged.
The 33-year-old had already been beaten in straight sets during the first round of the Grand Prix Hassan II and Monte Carlo Masters, and he was subjected to a third-straight clay defeat at the hands of Brandon Nakashima.
The American - 11 years Evans's junior - came through 7-6[5] 6-2 in two hours and nine minutes in a match where he was broken straight off the bat but responded impressively with a four-game victorious sequence.
Evans had some fight left in him, though, breaking to love in the ninth game as Nakashima tried to serve out the set, but he could now follow up an early tie-breaker point on the American's serve as Nakashima edged a tight opener.
The pair traded four holds at the beginning of the second set, but Nakashima's pressure quickly told, as the 22-year-old clinched the double break and needed just one match point to set up a second-round showdown with Andrey Rublev.
GB still have representation in Barcelona in the shape of Cameron Norrie, who faces French qualifier Harold Mayot in the second round on Tuesday, while Emma Raducanu squares off with Angelique Kerber in Stuttgart tomorrow morning.
Ben Knapton
