Jack Draper closing in on stunning rankings breakthrough after Indian Wells win
Jack Draper’s march towards the top ten of the ATP Rankings appears to be unstoppable after his latest masterclass at the Indian Wells Masters.
Draper demonstrated his class with a comprehensive dismantling of rising star Joao Fonseca in his opening match in ‘Tennis Paradise’ and he backed that up with an equally thrilling 7-5, 6-4 victory against Jenson Brooksby to storm into the last-16.
The No 13 seed has been knocking on the door of a first appearance in the top ten of the ATP Rankings and now his wait may not have much longer to run, as he is up to No 12 in the live rankings.
He may need to reach the final to get into the top 10 for the first time in his career this week, but an extended run in Indian Wells will pave the way for his progress into the elite list of the men’s game when he plays at the Miami Open later this month.
Draper lost in the second round in Miami last year, so he has a big chance to chase ranking points in that tournament, but his top 10 push is secondary to the opportunity he has in Indian Wells this week right now.
He has been one of the most impressive players at Indian Wells so far this year and his confidence is in evidence from his post match comments.
“I’m not surprised and I still have plenty of work on,” said Draper.
“Sometimes the ball is not coming off my rackety as I would hope, but I accept that and will work hard to do better.
“I was on a really good trajectory at the end of last year, obviously, building a lot of confidence, winning a lot of matches.
“I finally feel like I have found my blueprint of my game and the way I want to keep on improving everything. Just by being injured in that period, I wasn’t able to keep going. I was, you know, stopped still.
“I knew all I needed to do then was just go back and get my training underway, get physically in the gym, do all my conditioning, but get my quality right on court, get my consistency better day in, day out.
“What I need then is to play matches and hopefully win matches. Doha gave me that (lost in the final against Andrey Rublev). So I’ve been back on that trajectory that I want to be again.”
Former British No 1 Tim Henman is convinced Draper is on his way to the very top of the game, as he backed the Brit to get into the top 10 of the rankings and stay there.
“Twelve months ago, you see him winning a fairly straightforward five-set match and he is vomiting on the court. That, to me, is 99 per-cent mental,” said Henman.
“He puts in so much work on the practice court and I’ve seen him working so hard in training and in the gym.
“So to come through three five-setters when he was not in the best shape of his life was massive for him.
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“That will give him so much belief that he can play the long matches.
“When you first play five-set matches and you lose a tough first set, I promise you it feels like a long way to the winning line.
“You are only a set down, but you still have to win three and wow, it feels like a long way off.
“When you have been through the process a few times, you start to understand how to deal with it mentally and that massively helps the body respond better to the challenge.”
When asked to assess where his ranking could be at the end of this year, Henman made a bold claim.
“Top 10, for sure,” he added. “Can he qualify for the ATP Finals at the end of the year? Why not. He’s an outsider, maybe, but that’s the conversation around Jack now.
“It’s all about Jack maximising his potential. How good he is going to be, we don’t know, but we won’t have long to find out.”
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