Barely a month after Andy Murray waved goodbye at the Paris Olympics, British tennis has a new standard bearer.
In the latest coming-of-age performance of a fortnight that has been full of them, Jack Draper maintained his seamless progress at the US Open to become the first British man to reach the semi-finals since Murray won the title in 2012. Yet to drop a set in New York, the 22-year-old marked his maiden appearance in Arthur Ashe Stadium with a 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 win over Alex de Minaur, the Australian 10th seed, who was clearly hampered by a hip problem but never stopped fighting.
Draper likewise knows what it is to labour with injury, and as he sat at courtside afterwards removing the various straps and supports holding his battle-scarred body together, it was hard not to recall the various physical issues that have stalled his career, most notably when a shoulder injury forced him to miss Wimbledon last year. There was a brief scare here, too, when he called for the trainer early in the second set to get his right thigh strapped. But Draper has become accustomed to dealing with adversity, and his first act on returning to the fray was to batter down one of the 11 aces he produced on the day.
“I’ve been working so hard for such a long time now,” said Draper. “Last year was a real turning point for me, when I had my injury setbacks and took a lot of time off over the summer because of my shoulder injury.
“I had to watch all these young, amazing players winning amazing tournaments and playing on the biggest stages in the world, and I felt like I just wasn’t doing enough to get to that point myself.
“So this is not an overnight thing for me. I’ve believed for a long time that I’m putting in the work and doing the right things, and I knew that my time would come. I didn’t know when it would be, but hopefully from here I can do a lot of amazing things.”
Draper’s progress to this point has certainly been remarkable. When the fortnight began with the British southpaw still smarting from the controversial conclusion to his win over Felix Auger-Aliassime in Cincinnati, where a double bounce went unnoticed by the chair umpire, few would have anticipated Draper emerging from a quarter headed by Carlos Alcaraz, the French Open and Wimbledon champion. But the Spaniard’s shock second-round defeat to Botic van de Zandschulp, combined with Hubert Hurkacz’s exit at the same stage, created an opportunity that Draper has gleefully embraced, dispatching Van de Zandschulp and Tomas Machac with minimal fuss before claiming the fourth top-10 win of his career against De Minaur.
Naysayers will point out that none of those opponents came close to doing themselves justice, and that is true. Van de Zandschulp suffered a mental and emotional letdown following his win over Alcaraz, Machac’s game crumbled as rapidly as his composure, and De Minaur’s fleet-footed movement, perhaps his most dangerous weapon, was clearly compromised as he continues to manage the fallout from the torn hip cartilage that forced him to pull out of Wimbledon. Draper is sure to face a sterner test against Jannik Sinner, with whom he shares a close friendship, after the Italian world No 1 later saw off Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 to book his place in the last four.
Yet you can do no more than beat the player on the opposite side of the net, and Draper has met every challenge he has faced with composure and maturity. That was particularly true of his tussle with De Minaur, where he avoided the pitfall of abandoning his gameplan in favour of trying to capitalise on his stricken opponent’s injury. There was a brief moment of crisis for Draper when, having held break points that would have given him a 5-2 lead in the second set, he instead found himself serving to stay in it at 4-5. To his credit, though, he immediately steadied himself to see out the set and, in short space, the most important win of his career.
“It is a challenge playing someone who maybe isn’t 100%,” said Draper. “Towards the end of the first set, I didn’t know that he was struggling with injury, but I definitely noticed he was a bit subdued. That made me realise he maybe had something slightly wrong, but then again maybe I was hurting a little bit as well. So it was a bit of a strange situation.
“I definitely felt in the second set I had a few opportunities, and it was there for me to take the set pretty early on, but I didn’t. I think part of that was to do with maybe focusing on myself too much, and not realising what was going on the other side of the court.
“It’s tough, you know, I was playing someone who moves still pretty well and was making balls. It was kind of difficult to play the way I wanted to play, I started becoming more passive and was playing for him to miss instead of the playing the tennis that I’m supposed to be playing, which is to be aggressive, to be on the front foot.”
Whatever happens over the next few days, Draper is certainly on the front foot now. Comparisons with Emma Raducanu, whose surprise run from qualifying into the main draw culminated with a shock title win three years ago, are inescapable. As Raducanu would be the first to admit, however, the sport moves on; her title run is old news. British tennis has a new leading light – and, like Murray before him, Draper is forging his own path.