JDraper has been inspired by Emma Raducanu’s US Open victory three years ago and will be hoping to continue his spectacular breakthrough in New York before playing a tough semi-final against world number one Jannik Sinner on Friday.
“What Emma did was obviously incredibly inspiring,” said Draper, who is a year older than Raducanu. “I’ve known her since I was a little girl and it was incredible to see what she did. I was very proud of her, very excited, and I thought, ‘We’ve obviously seen Andy Murray win a Grand Slam for Britain, but her win, it was a fairytale run.’ I think it definitely fueled my fire as a competitor. I really wanted to achieve what she had done, win a Grand Slam.”
Draper began the tournament with one Grand Slam appearance in the fourth round and is now just two wins away from the US Open title, having reached the semifinals with an efficiency similar to that of Raducanu in 2021. He is still without dropping a set.
This was an exceptionally open men’s tournament and after years of bad luck Draper clearly benefited from his run to the semi-finals. But he took his chances with both hands, playing such bold, attacking tennis and holding his nerve brilliantly at all the decisive moments. To advance, Draper must now tackle one of the biggest challenges in this new generation of men’s tennis.
After establishing himself as world number 1 this year, Sinner continues to perform at a superior level with remarkable consistency and is now 53-5 (91%) overall this year plus 33-2 (94%) on hardcourt. Not only does Sinner’s immense groundstrokes allow him to out-hit most opponents, he has also improved defensively and it has become difficult to consistently hit the ball past him. Draper will almost certainly need to produce his best serve of the tournament, maintain aggression behind his forehand on the biggest points and be clinical in attack to win.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, after the Italian’s heavyweight win over Daniil Medvedev, the first mention of Draper brought a broad smile to Sinner’s face. The two have become good friends in recent years after they began sending each other messages of support. They played doubles together at the Canadian Open last month, and Draper offered Sinner his heartfelt support after the Italian announced two weeks ago that he had tested positive for the banned substance clostebol twice in March, before an independent court found him to have committed no significant culpability or negligence.
“We’re obviously young,” Draper said. “We play this incredibly tough sport. There’s a lot of emotional ups and downs. There’s a lot of tough moments. So I think it started with us sending messages to each other when we were having bad moments or good moments.”
The matchup also underscores how individual and unique each journey is. While Draper won their only professional match at Queen’s in 2021, their first meeting on the court came in 2017 in a junior doubles match in Berlin when they were 15 years old. Sinner, who combined tennis with a promising skiing career as a youth, wasn’t a top junior, only reaching No. 133 in the rankings, compared to Draper’s highest junior ranking of No. 7. At that junior event, Sinner didn’t even make it out of the singles qualifying draw: “I remember playing him in doubles and we were like, ‘Oh, hit him!’ because he’s not the best player on the court,” Draper said with a laugh.
But Draper battled his body and spent his early years as a pro sidelined by injuries, watching as Sinner and other players of their generation overtook him and built a career that at times seemed far beyond his reach.
Speaking about Raducanu’s triumph and the unrealistic expectations that followed her US Open win at a time when she was not physically ready for the tour, Draper noted that he now sees his injury-free spells as a blessing in disguise. They taught him exactly what he needed to do to succeed in the sport.
“It’s made me realize that this is something that I have to put my whole life into this sport,” he said. “I have to eat the right things, train harder than I ever have before, get good people around me and just kind of shut myself off and really focus on what’s going to make me one of the best players in the world. And I think learning those lessons, learning from other players and their different experiences, and seeing what’s happened to me, I think it’s definitely important that I really look at myself and try to figure out how I’m going to be consistent.”
Draper is finally exactly where he belongs, battling the best players in the world in the final stages of one of the biggest tournaments. He already has all the weapons, the speed of movement and a well-rounded enough game to not only duel Sinner as an equal, but to ensure that, whatever happens, this is just the beginning of his success at the highest level of his sport.
