Evans knocked out by Wawrinka in behind-closed-doors Paris event as impressive year comes to an end 

Dan Evans suffered another loss to Stan Wawrinka in the opening round of the Paris Masters.

The British number one had lost all four previous clashes with his Swiss rival, although he had held match points in two of them, including in St Petersburg last month when Wawrinka prevailed 3-6 7-6(3) 7-5. 

This was another close contest, with a single break of the Evans serve early in the first set proving the difference as the 12th-seeded Swiss player powered to a 6-3 7-6(3) victory and will face the winner of Gilles Simon and Tommy Paul in the next round. 

Dan Evans enjoyed a successful few weeks in Vienna and Antwerp but was second best here

The event in the French capital announced that it was going ahead behind closed doors last week to comply with a second nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, having initially planned to admit 1,000 fans a day during the week-long tournament, which began on Monday.

Rafael Nadal is the favourite and opens his account against fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez on Wednesday, but the top seed has never won the event and should he slip up, there are a number of big names waiting in the wings including Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev, who has been the subject of domestic abuse allegations in the last week.  

British doubles player Joe Salisbury was forced to pull out of the event at short notice after ‘sustained close contact’ with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. 

Salisbury and doubles partner Rajeev Ram have been the best-performing men’s pair this year.

Evans has enjoyed one of the best years of his career so far, reaching a career-high ranking of 28 in March and claiming the scalps of Alex de Minaur, David Goffin, Grigor Dimitrov, Fabio Fognini, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov in 2020, beating the latter two twice this year. 

Stan Wawrinka is in the world’s top 20 and reached the Australian Open last eight in January

The 30-year-old also reached the semi-finals of the prestigious Dubai Masters 1000 event in February before being eliminated by Stefanos Tsitsipas and reached the last four at tournaments in Vienna and Antwerp in the last two weeks.  

After slipping out of the top 20 in March 2018, Wawrinka hauled himself back to the position in June last year and has stayed there for the most part, making the quarter-finals at the Australian Open in January as he defeated Medvedev and John Isner along the way before losing to Zverev.