When Jack Draper first met a red-headed Italian lad named Jannik Sinner, he wasn’t particularly impressed.
“I remember playing him in doubles,” recalled Draper, who was 15 when he and Sinner originally encountered each other at a junior event in Berlin. “We were saying ‘Hit to him, because he’s not the best player on the court’!”
Little did Draper know that Sinner would one day become an important figure in his life. Not just as an opponent – for these gifted men will meet in Friday’s US Open semi-finals – but as a friend.
Only a month ago, Draper and Sinner played doubles together at a tour event in Montreal, winning two rounds before withdrawing – probably because Sinner was more interested in his singles quarter-final against Andrey Rublev the next day.
They share a mutually supportive bond, in which each man follows each other’s results and provides reassurance – a much-needed quality amid the lonely life of a travelling tennis pro. But this is no time for sentimentality. Draper must put their personal connection to one side if he wants to reach his first grand-slam final.
Slightly surprisingly – in view of Sinner’s position as the top seed and world No 1 – Draper goes in as the winner of their only previous tour meeting, which came at Queen’s in 2021.
At that time, Sinner was already a top-20 player with two ATP titles and a quarter-final appearance at the French Open to his name. Draper was ranked No 309 and had recently caused consternation by collapsing in the heat of Miami.
A home crowd, and the elusive way that Draper’s lefty serve kept sliding sideways off the lush grass, helped supply an important upset. “I thought I had no chance of beating Jannik,” said Draper afterwards, “so I didn’t even bother looking at who I was playing next.”
True bromance
At the same press conference, Draper explained that “I spoke to him actually for the first time before the match. He’s a really nice guy. I’m sure as I get to know him more, we’ll be good friends.”
It must have been an enjoyable conversation, because that was the start of a genuine tennis bromance: a rarity on this largely selfish circuit.
In the build-up to this US Open, Draper even found himself defending Sinner over the recent controversy involving Clostebol – the banned steroid that caused Sinner to fail a pair of doping tests in March.
“He must be going through a lot right now,” said Draper on the eve of the tournament. “I’m quite close with Jannik and I’d honestly say that he’s one of the nicest, most genuine, kind, professional guys that I’ve been around on the tour.
“Anything can get in your system and in the weirdest ways. I really don’t think Jannik would have had any clue about what was going on. For him to know about this, and carry that on his shoulders for the last four or five months, and make semis of grand slams and win Masters events… I don’t think many people could have done that.”
Partners in crime
It seems strange to think now that both these players arrived in New York under a cloud, with Draper’s offence – in the eyes of several established tennis names such as Nick Kyrgios and Andy Roddick – being an unsportsmanlike failure to call “bump ball” against himself in the third round of Cincinnati.
Whatever you may think of their alleged crimes, neither player has shown any sign of distraction during the tournament. Sinner has dropped only two sets in five rounds – the latest coming in his comfortable 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Daniil Medvedev on Friday night – and Draper none at all.
Something else they have in common is that, when they first encountered each other on the doubles court in 2017, both men were very much the understudy. As a young boy, Sinner had shown a prodigious talent for skiing, finishing second in the Italian national giant-slalom championships at the age of 12.
He only turned to tennis seriously at 13, having noticed that “If you make one mistake [in skiing], the whole thing is over.” Despite rapid progress under the expert eye of legendary Italian coach Riccardo Piatti, he was still quite green when he went to Berlin for that doubles match alongside Davide Tortora, who is now a tennis scholar at the University of Mississippi.
Motivated by criticism
As for Draper, he was playing with his former sparring partner George Loffhagen, who was seen as the better prospect at that stage. There was a turning point in January 2018 when Alan Jones – another influential coach who sadly died earlier this year – was quoted saying that Draper had travelled to Australia as Loffhagen’s hitting partner, as opposed to being a contender in his own right. After reading that quote, Draper recalled, “I had never been more motivated in my life.”
As you can see, Draper’s story has a certain hare-and-tortoise moral to it. The same lessons apply even to the comparisons between Emma Raducanu’s lightning strike at the 2021 US Open and Draper’s more measured progress.
“I’ve had a few blessings in disguise,” said Draper this week. “I’ve got injured a few times. It’s made me realise that this is something where I have to put all my life into this sport. I have to eat the right things, get good people around me, and shut myself off.”
Should he manage to shock Sinner on Friday, the former tortoise will have graduated into the fastest climber on either tour.
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