Jack Draper, the emerging hope of British tennis, ascribes his recent form surge to his growing maturity. We should be grateful that he made it this far, because he considered quitting tennis more than once in his younger days.
At 22, Draper has responded to Andy Murray’s recent retirement by seizing the British tennis baton and rolling into the US Open quarter-finals without dropping a set.
But for all the assurance Draper has shown at Flushing Meadows over the last week, he used to wonder whether he was “cut out” for this all-consuming sport.
“There were times when I was maybe going to stop playing,” said Draper in his on-court interview after defeating Tomas Machac in straight sets on Monday. Later, when asked to expand on his comment, he explained: “I had multiple moments. When you come out of the juniors, it’s not the strawberries and cream of Wimbledon that I expected.
“It was a real grind for a few years, getting my head around how hard I’m going to have to work to be a top player, and the travel and the sacrifice. It got to lockdown, and during that period, I think I had a real reflection and genuinely thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for tennis.
“I had good people around me, I came back, and then had another little moment in 2022 where, with all my injuries that I was having and the hard times I was going through, [I wondered] whether I was going to be able to be a top player.
“When I was younger, I was almost sold a dream. I thought it was going to be easy for me, but the reality was, it was incredibly difficult. But in the last year or so, I’m beginning to believe more and more in my capabilities, and in the possibility that hopefully one day those dreams can come true.”
Draper has made the most of an open draw in New York, after his scheduled third-round opponent Carlos Alcaraz crashed out of the tournament on the first Thursday. But the quality of his opposition is about to ramp up. His quarter-final opponent will be Alex de Minaur, the 10th seed from Australia.
In a quirky twist, de Minaur is dating the other British No 1 – Katie Boulter – who sat in his player box when he defeated Solihull’s Dan Evans in the third round. Boulter is not expected to be present on Wednesday, which is probably a good thing for the unity of the whole British tennis camp.
“I’ve played plenty of Brits, [and] it’s never easy,” said de Minaur on Monday, who caused Boulter no little stress when he established a 6-0 head-to-head record against Andy Murray, including two dramatic comebacks last year in the space of a month.
“Had enough Alex and Andy for the rest of my life,” Boulter tweeted in October, after a devastated Murray had wasted a match point against de Minaur in Paris. “No more please and thank you.”
De Minaur has won six of his last seven meetings with British opposition, and holds a 4-0 winning record against Draper. Yet past results are not always a reliable guide. Machac was 3-0 against Draper until Monday, and still failed to lay a glove on him.
Asked whether he feels like he has become an honorary Brit through his relationship with Boulter, de Minaur replied: “Depends on the day, depends who I’m playing as well. But yeah, at times. At Wimbledon I was.
“I feel a little bit of a hostile [party] in the country at the moment,” de Minaur added. “But these are the types of matches I want to be playing. I’m excited for the battle.”
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