Is it happening again? Three years after the original Fairytale of New York, Jack Draper writes a cover version – to the sound of cymbals and pounding percussion.
Three years after Emma Raducanu’s title, her British compatriot is in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time, beating Alex de Minaur in another display of calm and brute force.
Like Raducanu, he is through without dropping a set after this 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 victory. And like Raducanu, it must be said, his draw has been opened like a Long Island oyster.
Well, that all comes to an end now: in the last four, Draper will face the winner of the thrilling encounter between 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev and world number 1 Jannik Sinner.
He will have to play the game of his life to win it, but this impressive 22-year-old has answered all the questions asked of him over the past two weeks. We would be foolish to doubt his chances.
British No. 1 Jack Draper has reached the semi-finals of the men’s singles at the US Open in New York
Draper defeated 10th-seeded Australian Alex de Minaur 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 in the quarterfinals on Wednesday
Everything has come together for Draper these past two weeks, in his route through the draw, but also in his own game. The grinding, counter-punching style he developed as a youngster and the muscular approach he has forced himself to adopt this year: in New York, those two elements have come together in perfect synthesis.
He intimidated De Minaur on serve with first-strike tennis, but was equally happy to act from the baseline. He volleyed well and hit passing shots on the rare occasions when De Minaur ventured to the net. After pinning his man, he hit drop shots into the empty open court.
Both men were looking to reach their first Grand Slam semi-final here, and on paper, No. 10 De Minaur was the favorite. But Draper never gave him a chance.
The Minaur was made to look lightweight, a scuffler and a nudger. Draper once said he ‘felt like I was 5ft 6in’ when he was up against a top player. Well, here he made his 6ft opponent look like an Oompa Loompa.
The elephant in the room was De Minaur’s hip, which he injured at Wimbledon. He feared it would keep him out of the US Open and before he faced Dan Evans in the third round, he had stated that he was 80-85 percent fit.
There didn’t seem to be much wrong with him in the victories over Evans and Jordan Thompson, with De Minaur himself claiming he ‘peaked at the right time’.
He certainly looked hampered here, far from his best agility. Perhaps he was struggling this morning – or perhaps he simply hadn’t faced an opponent of the quality required to show his physical problems. After all, Novak Djokovic looked pretty good after his knee surgery at Wimbledon until Carlos Alcaraz decapitated him in the final.
Draper was as dominant here as he has been in every match in New York, his good draw made all the better by how badly each of his opponents played against him.
The 22-year-old Draper had never reached the last four of a Grand Slam before
Draper, who hit 11 aces against De Minaur, has not dropped a single set at the US Open this year
Especially in his last three rounds, Botic van de Zanschulp collapsed, Tomas Machac played perhaps the worst match of his life and De Minaur was only a shadow of his best game ever.
It’s happened too often to be coincidence; there’s something about Draper’s game that brings out the worst in his opponents and what a valuable quality that is in a tennis player.
Part of that is due to Draper’s left-handed serve – never pleasant to watch – and there’s something about the heavy spin he puts on his forehand that makes it curve awkwardly towards the opponent’s body on the forehand side.
There’s also the fact that Draper has become a much more complete, aggressive player in the last few months. Players have to come up with a different strategy against him.
Draper has talked about being careful over the past two weeks and not rushing too hard, leaving himself long-legged in a potential fifth set. That has led to some slow starts in his earlier rounds, but nothing of the sort here as he won the first six points of the match en route to an early break.
De Minaur broke back immediately, but it never seemed to turn the tide. Draper dominated the prime real estate, forcing the Aussie to hide behind the baseline.
The normally stable De Minaur made mistakes, especially on the forehand side.
But he is nothing if not tenacious, and by earning a break point when Draper was serving for the set at 5-3, he had an opening. In response, Draper turned to one of the key plays in his US Open playbook: on break point, serving from the left, he goes for the wide slider and gets into the net.
Draper hit 40 winning goals and 30 unforced fouls to secure victory in just 127 minutes
De Minaur hit 21 winning errors and 30 unforced errors, which left him 29 points behind Draper
Like Arjen Robben popping up from the right and shooting with his left foot: opponents know what is coming, but that doesn’t mean they can do anything about it. Certainly not on a surface where the slice serve slips away so quickly.
Draper broke early in the second set and when De Minaur started to feel his left hamstring – possibly a side injury to his hip – it felt like Draper was very close to the finish.
Surprisingly, it was Draper who was the first to receive a medical timeout from the match, for his right thigh, and was re-strapped over the straps that had been imposed on him before the match.
That was the first sign of discomfort these two weeks and perhaps the news that he was not the only one on the track with physical problems gave De Minaur some hope.
Draper admitted that the easy wins sometimes left him less focused, and this certainly felt like one of those moments as he went from 4-2 to 4-5 down.
Remarkably, that was the furthest Draper had gone in a set this tournament. How would he respond if things didn’t go his way? By stealing the next three games and moving within a set of the semi-finals.
He broke for 3-2 with a crushing forehand down the line. A second break was hardly needed, but he took it anyway and stormed through to the semi-finals.