ROD LAVER ARENA — Jack Draper is not a quitter, instinctively.
This one you could see coming after three five-setters in a row, and with his match against the relentlessly physical Carlos Alcaraz startjng in the middle of the hottest day of the tournament so far.
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Read More“To come here, I think I have really surprised myself with how much I have been able to put myself through.”
Where exactly “he deserves” is not necessarily clear, but given Draper has already reached a career-high No 15 in the world, won his first two tour-level titles in Stuttgart and Vienna and of course reached a maiden grand slam semi-final at the US Open, all in the last 8 months, Alcaraz clearly thinks Draper is a top-10 player in the making.
It means there is a very real chance, depending on when Draper can get back on the match court, that he could make his top-10 debut in the coming months. But he says he will not be rushed back to action, for fear of creating more problems for his body.
“There is such short windows in tennis to get your body right. You don’t want to just spike your load so much, and that’s kind of what I have done here, and that’s why I got injured. All tennis injuries or most injuries in sport, unless it’s a freak accident, is all load management.
“Obviously you’re always going to have stress through your body and stuff, but it’s important for me to obviously just get my training load back up again, get this tendonitis or whatever I have going on sorted, so I can be consistent with everything that I’m doing again.”
Draper (left) was supposed to train with Alcaraz in pre-season (Photo: Getty)
And Alcaraz was not the only player who had to make other plans rather than train with Draper in pre-season: Brazilian teenage sensation Joao Fonseca flew to London to train with him, but had to work with other players at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton because the Brit’s hip had subsequently caused a back problem. At one point last month, Draper couldn’t even walk.
“I’m incredibly proud of my efforts,” Draper said. “My tennis has been pretty bang-average. The whole week it’s been really poor actually but it’s been my competitiveness, my fight, and my desire to win that’s got me into the last 16 of a grand slam, which is something I’m very proud of.”
Progress is being made
Retired injured was not how Draper wanted to end his first slam of the year (Photo: Getty)On that occasion, he gave a good account of his tennis, claiming the second set off the Spaniard, but had been cramping as early as the third and while he completed the match, it wasn’t much of a contest by the end.
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Read MoreDraper battled manfully, even breaking back in the first set, but it was clear even from the fourth game that he was unlikely to finish the match. The opportunities afforded by a flurry of errors, not an uncommon occurrence with Alcaraz’s hyper-aggressive gamestyle, he was just about fit enough to take but it was “vamos” not “come on” that was roared from the end of the court after 57 minutes. Alcaraz had the opening set, and the second was much more one-sided as Draper eventually found himself unable to recover into the middle of the court.
“I want to have a good, consistent year. I have been on a good run in the last 18 months, been relatively injury-free, and that’s allowed me to play the tennis I want to play and play well in these big tournaments,” Draper said.
“I want to be able to show up to these events and give it my best shot and have the right preparation I need.”
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