Jack Draper: I must have made it – people are noticing my haircuts

Yahoo

23-05-2025

You know you've made it when you can't amend your hairstyle without provoking debate on social media.
In the case of British No 1 Jack Draper, his recent adoption of frosted highlights provoked a sardonic Instagram post from sometime mentor Andy Murray: 'Not sure if you noticed but I think a bird has s--- on your hair.'
A wider discussion then ensued among tennis fandom, thus emphasising the extra visibility that comes with success.
'I've had the same shocking haircut since I was 14, and now everyone's saying I've got a new haircut!' Draper told reporters on Friday, during a break in his French Open preparations. 'I guess more people are taking keen attention.'
Nobody was worrying about Draper's styling choices a year ago, when he lost in the first round of this tournament to world No 176 Jesper De Jong. A traumatic five-setter, this result felt extremely demoralising at the time. Yet it may also have been the single most important moment of Draper's season. Perhaps even his career.
No sooner had Draper stepped off the Eurostar back to St Pancras than he embarked upon a far-reaching technical and tactical reboot. The project proved so effective that he won his very next tournament in Stuttgart, and now returns to Roland Garros as the world No 5. In the prize-money table for 2025, only two men – multiple major champions Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner – stand ahead of him.
'There's a bit more noise around everything for me,' said Draper on Friday. 'I've always been aware that if I want to be a top player, what comes with that is more attention, good and bad. I'm ready for that. I'm adapting my life. Because I do believe that I can go right to the top.
'I've got my whole circle prepared for that,' Draper added, 'and I feel prepared for that as well, because I've gone through lots of adversity and ups and downs. At the same time, like Andy always said, I'm gonna have a lot of love from people. I'm gonna have a lot of the crowds behind me at Queen's and Wimbledon, and that helps massively.'
Will Draper seek out Murray for further discussion about the summer schedule, and the circus that inevitably surrounds British hopes at Wimbledon? 'I'll definitely pick Andy's brains here and there,' he replied. 'I think it's a difficult one, because everyone has different things that work for them. So Andy might say something to me, and I'll be like, 'That's not gonna make me feel my best.'
'I'm yet to speak to Andy around that stuff, but I definitely will, and I know he's always there if I need him.'
As expectations ramp up, part of Draper's challenge will lie in managing off-court commitments. With his broad shoulders and square jaw, he has obvious appeal for advertisers, and he fits the odd modelling assignment into his schedule. During a recent appearance for Burberry, he jumped into the Gulf of Persia alongside former It Girl Rosie Huntington-Whitely.
His diving technique might have drawn a raised eyebrow from Huntington-Whitely's fiance – former Commonwealth Games diver Jason Statham – except that Statham was 'away on a movie shoot, doing his thing.'
Such diversions are increasingly rare, however, for a man who says he is 'trying to protect my energy more'. And efficiency will become even more important once the French Open concludes and he returns to the slippery green grass of home.
Focusing on Roland Garros for the moment, Draper has not landed the easiest of draws. His opening opponent in Paris will be Italy's Mattia Bellucci – a former junior contemporary and rival ranked No 66 in the world – which isn't too tough a start on paper. But the level of challenge could escalate quickly with French veteran Gael Monfils and Brazilian prodigy Joao Fonseca also potentially lying in wait before the middle weekend. Most concerning, though, is a likely clash with world No1 Jannik Sinner in the quarter-finals.
Brilliantly as Draper has done to reach No 5 on the rankings ladder, he could really have done with another 20 points – a mere bagatelle – to take him past the USA's Taylor Fritz and into fourth position. That way, he would have been guaranteed to avoid either Sinner or Alcaraz – the new 'Big Two' of tennis – until the semi-finals.
'I've always been someone who's quite wired, I would say,' explained Draper, whose loss to De Jong was his only previous completed match at Roland Garros. 'Someone who wants to achieve things all the time. I want to keep on moving forwards. Like, I have to be progressing, otherwise I'm struggling, you know?
'That on one hand is an amazing quality. But at the same time, the battle is learning how to have my life outside of tennis so that I can relax, I can switch off from the sport, and I can hopefully work out ways to have longevity.'
It wasn't only Draper who suffered in Paris last year. Six British singles players entered the French Open, and six went away without troubling the scorers, with the other fallers being Murray, Dan Evans, Cameron Norrie, Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart.
On Friday in Paris, Boulter complained about the way such results are received. 'I feel like we've had a few conversations around the Roland Garros period the last few years,' she said. 'I think people can be quite critical of the Brits around the clay-court season right before the grass season.
'As you know, it's not our preferred surface. We don't grow up on it. We don't get the chance to play on it that much as a kid. So naturally our game styles don't suit it as much.'