A couple of days after sealing his first career grand slam win, at Wimbledon, in 2022, a 20-year-old Jack Draper earned himself a rare chance to test his level against one of the sport’s rising stars over the best of five sets.
The early returns from his second-round bout on No 1 Court with Alex de Minaur were encouraging. Despite the 67 ranking places and three years separating them, they went blow to blow as equals and were level after the two tight, gripping sets.
The intensity of their exchanges, however, left a significant mark on the young challenger and Draper spent the remainder of the match panting and hunching over as he faded in the last two sets. Between his undeniable raw talent and the physical problems that eventually hampered him, the match was a perfect reflection of Draper’s early development.
They will meet again in the quarter-finals of the US Open on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest match of their careers. In a draw that has provided numerous upsets and early exits, with the third seed, Carlos Alcaraz, losing early in their section, there is no top player to conquer en route to the final four. This is a massive opportunity for both of them.
Even though De Minaur has embraced a more offensive playing style, taking the ball earlier and beefing up his forehand to impose himself on the top players, he will again aim to extend the exchanges, to wear Draper out and test all of the physical problems the young Briton has struggled with repeatedly since his emergence.
After so many injuries and absences, it has taken an admirable amount of work for Draper to build himself into an athlete capable of competing with the best. He must now show how far he has come, particularly against an opponent who has won all three of their encounters.
Despite reaching his first grand slam quarter-final without dropping a set, Draper repeatedly describes his run here as feeling strange. He is understandably not pleased with his first-serve average of 53%, but he has been incredibly clutch, saving 20 of 21 break points and losing his serve once, repeatedly stopping opponents from building any momentum.
Against a player and returner like De Minaur, he will clearly need to land more first serves and sustain aggression with his forehand. Draper has shown how well rounded his game is, mixing tidy net forays and serve and volley attempts. He will need them to keep De Minaur off balance and break down his defences.
Draper is an incredibly ambitious figure who strongly believes he can be a top player and spend most of his career competing for the biggest titles. But it has taken some time for him to gain that deep confidence.
Before the quarter-finals, he reflected on a career that included two periods when he seriously considered quitting. The first occurred as he began on the lowest rungs of the pro circuit.
“When you’re younger, you have all these big dreams of winning Wimbledon and all these types of stuff,” he said. “Then you come out the juniors and you’re into the grind, you’re into the 15Ks, the challengers.
“It’s crazy. You have to go to all these hard places to play and beat men. And it’s really difficult. 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 the nature of the tennis world and how hard I’m going to have to work to be a top player and the travel and the sacrifice.”
After resolving to fight and beginning his rise, Draper’s doubts overwhelmed him again in 2022 at the height of his various physical problems. He had nearly lost all faith in his body and its ability to withstand the rigours of being a professional.
“I thought, with all my injuries that I was having and the hard times I was going through, whether, again, I was going to be good enough to sustain being the top player I wanted to be because I didn’t want to be a player who wasn’t going to be a top player.”
All those struggles only strengthened his resolve and these moments, battling on the biggest stadiums deep in a grand slam tournament, are precisely what he has been working towards.
It will be fascinating to see whether he is truly ready to take his opportunity and push even further forward.
