Britain’s best player Jack Draper stands in the curious position where he is more renowned on the world tennis tour than he is in his home country, thanks to a modest Wimbledon record.
But that could change quickly if Draper continues the sparkling form he has shown amid the palm trees of Indian Wells, the Californian “tennis paradise” where he has just beaten two of the most dangerous Americans – Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton – without dropping a set.
His next appointment will be Saturday’s semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish maestro whom he defeated at Queen’s last summer. And tennis insiders are beginning to ask some intriguing questions. Not just “How good could this guy turn out to be?” but “Is Draper capable of winning a major?”
Like all the leading pros, Alcaraz is keeping an eye on Draper’s progress, and said on Thursday night that: “I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be one of the toughest on the tour in the future or in the next year.”
So, where does Draper go from here? At the moment, men’s tennis is running a three-tier model, like a wedding cake. At the top stands a celebrated trio consisting of Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, who have shared the last 11 slams between them. At the bottom, we find the also-rans.
The middle group is the most unpredictable. These are tennis’s wannabes, including world No 14 Draper, who have been doing their best to chip away at the leaders, but without much success.
Admittedly, Draper, 23, is still in short trousers when compared to some of the grizzled figures around him. He does not yet have the body of work to place alongside other members of the world’s top 10 – which he will break into for the first time if he should beat Alcaraz on Saturday.
One suspects, however, that the next breakthrough star will be on the younger side: someone without the scar tissue built up by players born in the 1990s. That group – which became collectively known as NextGen when the ATP launched a tournament for under-22s in 2017 – has been successively demoralised by two tennis trinities: not only the current one but also its predecessor, which comprised Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
The most familiar names in the middle tier are the likes of Fritz, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev, the three most recent slam runners-up from outside the elite trio. Yet these former NextGen players in their late 20s are treading water at best, if not actively fading from view. Certainly none of them has matched Draper’s winning ratio of 85 per cent this season, which only Alcaraz and Sinner can surpass.
While Draper might still be relatively green – having played only 27 grand-slam matches to Alcaraz’s 76 and Sinner’s 86 – his rivals have been tipping him for stardom for some time. Particularly Andrey Rublev, who beat him in the recent Doha final but still predicted that: “He has a really, really great career and future ahead. He will win many great things.”
The eye test tells us that Draper has a well-stocked kitbag: a massive lefty serve, backed up by super-solid groundstrokes and even a deft drop-shot. He also displays a healthy dollop of mongrel. This last quality surfaced in Australia in January, where he arrived undercooked on account of an off-season hip injury, but still battled through three successive five-set victories before finally retiring hurt against Alcaraz – that man again – in the last 16.
And if you want statistics, Draper stands at No 5 in Tennis Abstract’s Elo rankings – a system that considers the quality of your opponents, rather than simple weight of results. The only men ahead of him on this list are the new Big Three and Zverev.
As we look forward, Draper’s situation is beginning to bear comparison with that of Andy Murray around the end of the Noughties.
Admittedly, he has not been anything like as prolific as Murray in his early years on the tour. By the equivalent age of 23 and a quarter, Murray had already won 14 ATP titles, compared to Draper’s modest two.
But there is a clear parallel in the hefty roadblock that stands in his path: three mighty figures, who have collectively beaten him five times in seven meetings to date. It was a similar story for Murray, who would surely have won more than three grand-slam titles in any other era.
Can Draper emulate Murray – a man he describes as his role model – by lifting a major title? It is not going to be easy. Sinner has been untouchable on hard courts for almost 18 months, while Alcaraz appears to have the clay and the grass wrapped up, and Djokovic – while fading – can still summon up uncanny powers at the biggest events.
Murray could help Draper
The irony is that Murray is actually coaching one of those giants at the moment, which could be awkward if Draper were to find himself up against Djokovic at Wimbledon this summer.
And yet, this development might still work in Draper’s favour. Murray’s present consultancy deal is hardly likely to be a long-term arrangement, given that Djokovic turns 38 this summer.
While it lasts, Murray must be soaking up every detail of his former rival’s planning and preparation. When he finishes that one, he should have earned his coaching stripes. And while Draper already has an excellent coach in James Trotman, he could still use a little consultancy from Murray: a man with first-hand experience of breaking tennis’s glass ceiling.
