OhioTennisZone.com Interview
OhioTennisZone Interview of St. Xavier's Drew Evans
It is now down to crunch time and OTZ's third (and likely last) interview of the season is with St. Xavier's Drew Evans. Evans and his partner, Carson Dwyer, are the Southwest District tournament champions, and they are certainly contenders for the State dubs championship.
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Evans playing against Liberty - Click to enlarge |
"My first goal of the season was to help lead my team to a successful season. And I believe I’ve achieved that goal as the team went 21-3 on the season, beating every team ranked ahead of us besides Mason. The next goal of mine was to lead the team to a state team championship. Unfortunately, that goal failed as we lost to Mason in the district semifinal. And now my goal in this part of the season is to win state with my doubles partner Carson Dwyer. I believe we have a really good shot at winning the title as his steady groundstrokes mixed with my net abilities makes us a deadly team.
As most higher level players do, he started playing tennis early. "I started playing tennis at the age of 6. It was kind of random, because none of my family members played at the time but my mom saw an ad for tennis lessons in our neighborhood and signed me up to stay active in the summer. The coach said I had a natural swing and needed to start playing, and ever since then I fell in love with the game of tennis. After I started playing, my mom thought it looked like fun, and now plays in a social tennis league and loves it. My dad plays in the summer and loves to play platform tennis in the winter. His mother, Michelle, is a physical therapist and his father, Brad, is a doctor. His older sister, Lexi, is a senior at Tennessee, majoring in marketing. His younger brother, Camron, is a junior at St. X and he plays volleyball.
Evans has remained a solid TennisRecruiting.net 4-star during juniors. His national ranking has ranged from 129 in 2020 to its current 172. His highest UTR Rating was 10.41 in January and it is 10.39 now. His UTR range is here.
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Evans in 2022 - Click to enlarge |
My overall favorite shot is the overhead. As a kid I did the "high low" drill every day. The drill was hitting a volley close to the net and then hitting a scissor kick overhead. I would do this until I had to throw up. Now looking back, I'm so thankful for this drill as I can hit a strong powerful overhead anywhere on the court, and I believe my overhead is one of the best around. I would say I have two big weapons. My first weapon being my net game. I have always loved coming to the net and feel very comfortable up there finishing off points. I have pretty good touch and like I said I love my overhead. [...] My second weapon I would say is my athleticism. I grew up playing basketball, baseball, and football. In doing this, I feel like it separates me from most tennis players as they have only played tennis their whole lives. I feel with my athleticism, I can anticipate well and hit some shots like a backhand overhead that most players can't pull off. Evans played baseball, basketball, football, and tennis until sixth grade. After sixth grade, he narrowed it down to basketball and tennis. After eighth grade, it was all tennis. His serve speed of 115 mph will complement the rest of his doubles game.
For college, I chose to attend Western Michigan University next year to continue my academic and athletic career. I chose WMU for three main reasons. Number one being, I love the coaches there. David Morin and Stephan Payne. Coach Morin really pursued me in my college search process where other coaches just told me I [could] have spot on the team, Morin said he wants to have me on his team; Being wanted is always a good feeling. They are also very knowledgeable about tennis and they have a very successful coaching history at WMU to help me become the best player I can be. Number two, Western offered me the vision I always dreamed of when thinking about college. I was considering Dayton and Butler University, but those schools are quite small compared to Western. I wanted a big school atmosphere without being too big and Western provides the perfect fit. And lastly, the facilities at WMU are top notch. Our main courts are where the "Zoo" is held every year, so every year we get brand new resurfaced courts. Also, we have our own indoor facility five minutes off campus. So, I'm looking forward to taking advantage of everything Western Michigan has to offer. While Evans does plan to play in the Midwest Closed this summer, he ages out before Kalamazoo.
Evans is more of a math / science student. He took one AP - a macroeconomics class. He did take honors math classes all four years.
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Evans in 2021 - Click to enlarge |
As for the obligatory response about OhioTennisZone, Evans stated, "OhioTennisZone is a great and easy way to look at other teams and players in the state of Ohio. It's really nice to see what teams are beating certain teams to get a sense where they compare. It's also really well done and organized with a lot of great information about wins and losses and has a lot of great data to learn about your competition. I always love seeing where you rank the teams before the season (even though I thought St. X should have been a little higher this year)." In OTZ's defense, Dwyer was not known to be joining the St. X team until after the OTZ Pre-Season Rankings were released on February 23. He turned out to be pretty good..
Why play high school tennis? "My favorite part about high school tennis is I love the team aspect. As mentioned earlier, I grew up playing team sports so I’ve always enjoyed those and bonding with your teammates to achieve a common goal. As you may have heard at St. X there is a sense of brotherhood, and being a part of the tennis team there really highlights the brotherhood at X. I loved forming long lasting relationships with my teammates over my years on the St. X tennis team."
Coach Joe Jackson shared this about Evans. "Drew is “the” player every coach wants in their program. He’s the type of player you can build a program around. He is a fierce competitor and consummate team player. He embodies the three principles (3 P’s) of our program: practice with purpose, process over outcome and play for something bigger. He had been a leader and motivator for every player on the squad. St. X is a better program and I am a better coach because of Drew’s (and his parent’s) support."
The State Tournament begins on Thursday. Good luck to Drew and all of the other players.
