Clunky Jack Draper needs Sir Andy Murray's chess-like ingenuity

Telegraph

03-06-2025

'The more grand slams I play and the more big matches I play, I'll learn from them and won't make the mistakes that I did today.'
So said the British tennis player who had suffered an unexpected loss at a major. Not Jack Draper, as it happens, but his friend and occasional mentor Sir Andy Murray, who made this comment an hour or so after going out of the 2008 Australian Open at the hands of an inspired Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
I mention the quote because Draper's surprise defeat on Monday felt so reminiscent of that period circa 2008-10 when Murray was generally ranked at No 4 in the world – the same position that Draper is likely to be in when the new chart is published on Monday.
It was a development phase for Murray, who then played a canny but slightly conservative baseline game based on working his opponents around the court and eliminating his own chances of error.
While most observers accepted that Murray trailed behind Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and perhaps Novak Djokovic, he was supposed to beat the likes of Tsonga, Marin Cilic, Fernando Verdasco and Stan Wawrinka, all of whom knocked him out of hard-court majors in this era.
The big shift began on New Year's Eve 2010, when Murray announced the appointment of Ivan Lendl as his coach. From that moment, he made a mindset change. He began to bully opponents with his serve and forehand, and eventually opened his grand-slam account in September 2012.
Now, I am not suggesting that Draper needs a so-called 'super-coach' like Lendl. He has James Trotman in his corner – not a great player, admittedly, but a wise and cool-headed character who has steered Draper's progress admirably to date.
But there are always lessons from the sorts of defeats that Draper suffered on Monday against the instinctive brilliance of Alexander Bublik. And in his case, we are talking about an ability to react more nimbly and speedily to his opponent's pattern of play, rather than showing his bafflement by yelling at his player box as he did here.
The only real criticism anyone could have of Draper and his team was that they looked surprisingly unprepared for Bublik's feathered drop shot. It's hardly news that Bublik loves that play.
Could Draper have done more to adjust his own position on the court? Could he have tried to gamble earlier in the rallies? During his post-match press conference, he intimated a faint sense of regret. 'Was [Bublik] playing that way because I was allowing him to maybe play that way? I'm not sure.'
While Draper is a burlier and more powerful figure than Murray, he is also a more manufactured tennis player. He lacks his predecessor's fluidity and feel, as well as his chess-like ingenuity on the court.
Bublik took full advantage of these minor weaknesses with a perfectly honed gameplan which, at times, made Draper look clunky, heavy-footed and predictable.
Alexander Bublik with a terrific return to take the second set over Jack Draper 🔥 #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/p9R36FzppK
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) June 2, 2025
And yet, just like with Murray 15 years ago, Draper is smart and self-aware enough to go away and analyse the footage. He will learn to change up his patterns more quickly when under pressure, and to deal with the mental stress of facing red-lining opponents.
Even when faced with such overwhelming quality, Draper still had five chances to break as Bublik served for the match. Unfortunately, he played tight-armed, safety-first points on the first two when one haymaker of a forehand might have turned the match.
This is another quality that champions learn: the knack of finding the right shot at the right time. The great ones have an almost supernatural ability to find the lines on the most important points.
Will Wimbledon provide another breakthrough?
Now Draper moves on to the grass, a surface where he feels much more comfortable – yet still hasn't made much of an impact at Wimbledon to date.
Drawn against defending champion Novak Djokovic on his 2021 Centre Court debut, he was eliminated by 19th seed Alex De Minaur a year later before missing 2023 with a torn shoulder tendon.
Only last year, when Draper went down in straight sets to compatriot and regular practice partner Cameron Norrie, did he have any reason to be disappointed. This was another match where a tactical adjustment might have helped, because Draper – who again turned in bafflement to his player box – was spraying too many errors and needed to dial back his ambition.
You might argue that I am contradicting myself here, by calling Draper too passive against Bublik and too aggressive against Norrie. But then, that is the beauty of tennis: different opponents pose different questions, and the challenge is to adapt on the day.
Draper certainly absorbed the lesson of last year's Wimbledon exit. His refusal to give away cheap points over the past year has been an important factor in his rise up the rankings. He will learn from Monday's Bublik masterclass too, and come back stronger.