Jack Draper: can Britain's Wimbledon hopeful unseat Carlos Alcaraz?
"Scratching around for form and struggling with tonsillitis" is how Britain's Wimbledon hopeful Jack Draper is feeling before the biggest tournament of them all next week, said the Daily Mail.
Draper "was a bubbling volcano of emotion" during his semi-final at Queen's Club in London. When his Czech opponent Jiri Lehecka "hammered a backhand past him for the decisive break of serve", the 23-year-old Draper "erupted, smacking his racket into an advertising hoarding".
"I don't condone that behaviour but that’s where I was at today," said Draper, who is ranked No.4 in the world. "When you're not feeling great, your energy is really low, you use everything you can to get yourself up."
'Fighting spirit' or 'missed opportunity'?
Queen's was Draper’s first grass-court tournament of the season, and he had been "trying to find rhythm and comfort", said The Guardian. But Lehecka "bulldozed everything in his path", beating the home favourite 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to set up a final with Carlos Alcaraz.
Despite the loss, Draper's showing at Queen's, which included wins over Alexei Popyrin and Brandon Nakashima, was promising and he will go into Wimbledon as the fourth seed in the men's singles.
Some fans believe his performance at Queen's has "affirmed a vital point" that could work in his favour when Wimbledon kicks off next week, said The Observer: he has a "fighting spirit, and will scrap when a match lurches away from him". For others, however, the fact that Draper "missed a gilded opportunity against an opponent ranked 30 in the world" may prompt them to view his Wimbledon chances "more realistically".
A challenger to Alcaraz?
The challenge Draper will face at Wimbledon is clear. Spain's Carlos Alcaraz "is on another level", said The i Paper, having won Queen's and the French Open back-to-back and now aiming for his third straight Wimbledon title. Draper's seeding means he would escape a match-up with Alcaraz until at least the semi-final, but beating him over five sets is a "daunting" prospect.
Still, he has done it before. He is the only player to beat Alcaraz on grass in the last two years. "Draper is absolutely a contender to win Wimbledon," said Sky Sports. “He is definitely a contender to make the final."
But the question remains whether Draper can pull off a mammoth feat in overcoming Alcaraz, who remarkably is only No.2 in the world, and the current No.1, Jannik Sinner. The chances of Draper being able to beat both of them "back-to-back" at Wimbledon seems "unlikely" right now. But "maybe in the future".