Nice Britain are one win away from the Davis Cup Finals knockouts after Dan Evans fought again from a set and break all the way down to put them forward towards France.
With a spot within the Last Eight at stake, Evans opened the best-of-three tie by beating Arthur Fils 3-6 6-3 6-4.
British primary Cameron Norrie will safe his group’s progress if he beats Ugo Humbert within the second singles.
If Norrie loses and France degree, Evans and Neal Skupski can nonetheless clinch qualification within the deciding doubles.
4 nations – Britain, Australia, France and Switzerland – are taking part in within the group-stage occasion at Manchester’s AO Enviornment.
All of them play one another as soon as in a round-robin format, with the highest two nations going by to the knockout stage of the boys’s group competitors – referred to as the ‘Last Eight’ – in Malaga in November.
With Australia already by and Switzerland eradicated, Britain know they’ll solely qualify with a victory over the French.
Britain, who final received the Davis Cup in 2015, are aiming for a return to the knockout stage after lacking out final yr.
‘It is by no means easy’ – Evans makes use of crowd power to combat again
With a robust squad at his disposal, Nice Britain captain Leon Smith had a troublesome choice name to make for the win-or-bust tie towards a proficient French squad.
Finally, he picked his highest-ranked gamers in Evans and Norrie, with former world primary Andy Murray and promising teen Jack Draper lacking out.
The transfer additionally ensured Evans – who would have performed second if the lower-ranked Murray or Draper had been picked – may have a break earlier than the possibly decisive doubles.
However French captain Sebastien Grosjean sprung a shock by handing a Davis Cup debut to 19-year-old Fils – who’s the highest-ranked teenager on the ATP Tour at forty fourth on the earth.
The match-up didn’t initially look comfy for world quantity 27 Evans.
Being pinned deep behind the baseline, Evans struggled for rhythm on serve and was unable to get on prime within the rallies as Fils dominated along with his athleticism and energy.
Issues appeared ominous for Evans when he trailed by a set and a break.
However the power returned when he ended a run of dropping 5 video games in a row and, backed by a British Davis Cup document crowd of 13,000, that sparked an impressive turnaround.
Evans strung collectively a successful sequence of seven video games to take the second set and break early within the third, occurring to transform his second match level when Fils hit a forehand into the web.
“That is one thing with the Davis Cup, it’s by no means ever easy,” Evans stated.
“He performed excellent in the beginning, [he has] a really unorthodox forehand – a superb one however completely different. It took me some time to get into it and I used to be a bit flat.
“Leon stated let’s throw the gameplan out of the window, carry something and the whole lot to the courtroom, together with the group.
“I fought my means by the second set and performed some excellent stuff within the third once I received my recreation again.”
