This time a year ago, British observers at Queen’s Club crossed their fingers and hoped for the best as Jack Draper faced defending champion and super-talent Carlos Alcaraz in the last 16. It was an unenviable draw, to say the least.
But Draper rose to the occasion, dispatching the Spaniard in straight sets, on a day that marked .
A week earlier, he had won his maiden ATP title, on the grass in Stuttgart, defeating former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini. If 2024 was to prove his breakout year, 2025, so far, has sent him into the stratosphere.
Now at a career high of world No 4 – although he will slip to fifth on Monday, having lost ranking points from not defending his title in Stuttgart – the Brit has arrived among the tennis elite.
British players carry an extra weight of expectation on their shoulders during the grass-court season, as generations can attest to; many of them have wilted under that pressure. This year will be Draper’s first test of how he handles playing on grass with not just that pressure, but the added burden of being a favourite for the title.
As the second seed, he will not face top seed Alcaraz until the final, should they both get that far. The 23-year-old opens his campaign against the unorthodox American Jenson Brooksby, with third seed and Stuttgart champion Taylor Fritz, fifth seed Alex de Minaur, and huge-serving Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in his half.
Queen’s was also the place Draper recorded his maiden tour-level win, as a 19-year-old wildcard in the 2021 edition, over none other than Jannik Sinner. Four years on, all three twentysomethings are the present and future of men’s tennis. Five of the eight seeds in the men’s draw are 23 or under, with the old guard struggling to keep pace with the sport’s bright young things.
Draper has spoken openly about his drive to bridge the gulf to the world’s two best players, who have shared the last six majors between them.
“I think tennis is in a really good spot in a way that the depth of it, especially the top 100, is extremely strong,” Draper said ahead of Queen’s, when asked about the rivalry between Sinner and Alcaraz.
“But having those two guys especially, who were being incredibly consistent showing that level of the game, in one of the biggest tournaments in the world, and dragging more attention to the sport, that only helps them, helps players like myself, helps the game in general to keep on moving in the right direction and keep developing.
“Obviously, the spectators will feel it, but players will feel it as well. When we haven’t got a Rafa [Nadal] or Roger [Federer] or Andy [Murray] in the changing rooms, it’s a bit different – but having players who are asserting themselves in that league, I think that’s amazing for tennis.
“That’s going to hopefully break even more through, because they’re going to keep on improving. They’re going to make us better, and we are going to hopefully keep producing more and more great players and great levels.”
While Draper has spent his time knuckling down to find the extra percentages he needs to routinely challenge Alcaraz and Sinner, the Spaniard was enjoying a now-traditional holiday.
He celebrated his instant-classic five-set triumph over Sinner in the Roland-Garros final by heading to Ibiza, demonstrating that while he is one of the brightest talents tennis has ever seen, he is also a 22-year-old who wants to have a good time.
“My friends are going to Ibiza every year, so I thought, I’ll go to Ibiza as well,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter the place you’re going, it’s time to turn off your mind a little bit, to reset physically, mentally, and come back to the grass season as good as I can.
“Once I went to bed so late. That’s the craziest thing [I did]. Obviously, I did some shots as well, but nothing more than that. More chill and as a normal person does.”
Alcaraz said that he still struggled to comprehend the enormity of his achievement. “[There are] a lot of videos from that match, from that moment, match point down, and I still watch it sometimes. I still don’t believe that I came back from that moment,” he said. “Sometimes it’s difficult to realise that I’m in this position, that I won the French Open, watching the videos from 40-love, in that moment. So I’m still watching those videos.”
Alcaraz opens his Queen’s campaign against compatriot Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, with a tricky section of the draw including another trio of young talents, new world No 10 Ben Shelton, Denmark’s Holger Rune, and Miami champion Jakub Mensik.
Alcaraz’s half also features 38-year-old veteran and fan favourite Gael Monfils, who may take inspiration from 37-year-old Tatjana Maria, the qualifier who produced the run of her life to .
Tennis doesn’t often go so far off script, however, and Draper will be aiming to write another chapter in the story of his own remarkable rise.