MUMBAI (Reuters) – Briton Dan Evans says a sports psychologist described him as one of the angriest people he had ever met during his one-year ban from tennis for cocaine use in 2017.
Evans, who tested positive at the Barcelona Open, returned to the circuit in April 2018 and is currently ranked at a career-high 28.
“When I first sat down with the sports psychologist he said I was probably one of the angriest people he had ever spoken to,” Evans told My Sporting Mind podcast.
“After I came back, he said I had so much pent-up anger from the ban and how I was speaking about things.
“During some parts of the ban, you’re disgusted with what you did, but you have to move on at some point, there has to be a line under the end of what you’ve done.”
Evans did not have it easy on his return to the ATP Tour and was left off the Wimbledon’s wildcard list in 2018, having to play pre-qualifying events before his home Grand Slam.
“Coming back, I had a few issues with trying to get back to play and getting into tournaments, and I wasn’t getting the easiest of help from the people I had helped before,” he said.
“I had played for my country a lot, and they were not so forthcoming with helping me get back into tournaments. That’s where the anger came from. It was difficult. But we all sat down and got it out of the way.”
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Peter Rutherford)
