Jack Draper has taken inspiration from Emma Raducanu’s US Open triumph three years ago as he looks to continue his own spectacular breakthrough run in New York before his tough semi-final against Jannik Sinner, the world No 1, on Friday.
“What Emma did was obviously incredibly inspiring,” said Draper, who is a year older than Raducanu. “I’ve known her from a young age and to see what she did was incredible. I was very proud of her, very excited, watching it thinking, obviously we’ve watched the likes of Andy Murray winning a grand slam from Great Britain, but her winning, it was just really a fairytale run. I definitely think as a competitor, it fuelled my fire. I really wanted to achieve what she’d done, winning a grand slam.”
