Sponsor-less Evans into fourth round of Australian Open

Dan Evans is turning out to be the breakthrough fairy tale story of the Australian Open and he's doing it without a logo on his shirt. The Brit beat Bernard Tomic in straight sets to reach the fourth round of a major for the first time. The win comes one round after he stunned No. 7-seeded Marin Cilic.

None of these results are coming out of the blue if you've watched Evans' rise closely.

Evans enjoyed a promising 2016 season, in which he won three ATP Challenger titles and finished inside the Top 100 for the first time. The 26-year-old also began the new year on a high, reaching his first ATP final in Sydney (falling to Gilles Muller).

Still, the world No. 51's contract with Nike wasn't renewed, so he had to get resourceful for the first Slam of the year.

"I'm just out of contract with Nike. They didn't offer me another contract," Evans said. "I just went to the store and bought a load of clothes the other day, plain clothes."

He explained this in press after his huge win over Cilic, adding that the shirts are Uniqlo but he didn't even look at what the shorts were.

Evans was getting by in the summer heat by washing the shirts he had purchased, even shrinking one by accident.

Don't feel too bad for Evans because things are starting to look up already.

"The company actually sent quite a lot to the locker room today. That was nice of them," Evans said. "There was no logo, so that was really nice of them as well. I've got quite a few now, and they were free."

If you remember him from last year's US Open, he very nearly became the biggest dark horse of the fortnight when he held a match point against eventual champion Stan Wawrinka in the third round. Instead of letting that disappointment bring him down, Evans has turned a tough draw in Melbourne into great opportunity. He faces Jo-Wilfried Tsonga next for a spot in the quarterfinals.

"It was a goal to make the fourth round of a Slam this year. It's satisfying," Evans said. "But I'm not looking back yet. We've got another match on Sunday, I think it is. We'll see what happens then."