Evans – who yesterday admitted that the doubles was his best chance at a medal – was beaten by the former French Open and Australian Open runner-up and eighth seed 6-1, 6-2.

Still recovering from an injury he picked up at the cinch Championships a month ago, Evans said that his third match in two days just proved a step too far but that he wanted to go out there and compete for Team GB.

“I’ll be fine tomorrow but it was a quick turnaround, and it was just too much today,” he said.

“To get the chance to represent Great Britain, I don’t think you should be pulling out so that’s why I went out there.

“I played too much tennis yesterday really. I haven’t played a lot of tennis (recently).”

Evans can now put all his efforts into the men’s doubles alongside Andy Murray, after the British pairing saved five match points against Kei Nishikori and Taro Daniel to take the victory in the deciding match tie-break.

“Andy’s been resting all day which is one good thing,” Evans joked.

“With what happened, especially because it’s him, it’s a pretty big thing. I hope tomorrow we start a bit faster – it would be amazing to do it in a straightforward manner.

“We’ll be better tomorrow and that’s a good thing.

“It was a pretty good feeling for me and Andy going back. Neal and Joe were preparing for a match so we had to respect them and it was quite late. It’s no good if we come in going nuts and getting everybody fired up. Wish I could have celebrated.”

Their next match will be against Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen against Arthur Fils and Ugo Humbert, which could take place tomorrow.

Also set for tomorrow’s schedule is Jack Draper, hoping to keep the British singles hopes alive in what is set to be a tough match against seventh seed Taylor Fritz.

Draper and Fritz share the head-to-head at one apiece, with the American having taken their only other meeting on clay in Munich earlier this year.

However, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski’s campaign came to an end after they lost to Czech Republic’s Tomas Mahac and Adam Pavlasek 4-6, 6-3, 10-8.