British No 2 Dan Evans continues good run to join Andy Murray in the semi-finals at Sydney Classic

Buried beneath the avalanche of sludge that has enveloped the Australian tennis season has been the quietly excellent start made to the year by Dan Evans.

Despite barely having a week off at the end of last year, the 31-year-old Midlander has won all five of his matches in 2022 so far. 

He has the chance on Friday to try to carry that run further towards next week’s Grand Slam against last year’s surprise Melbourne semi-finalist, Aslan Karatsev of Russia. 

Britain’s Dan Evans has made an excellent start to the year and won all five of his matches

Evans made it through to the semi-final of the Sydney Classic with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over American serve-and-volleyer Maxime Cressy, who pushed Rafael Nadal in a final last week.

Also through to the last four was Andy Murray, who progressed when David Goffin retired injured after losing the first set 6-2.

Evans was following up his hat-trick of wins from the previous week representing Great Britain in the ATP Cup, also in Sydney. 

Andy Murray (above) has progressed through to his first tour-level semi-final since 2019

Two of those came against the formidable Denis Shapovalov and John Isner. 

The missing link for Evans remains a deep run at one of the Grand Slams. 

He said: ‘You’ve got to pick your tournaments wisely to make sure you’re fresh coming into bigger tournaments.’