Jack Draper and Jannik Sinner ‘practice less together' ahead of potential clash
British number one Draper breezed into the fourth round with a commanding 6-2 6-4 6-2 win over Brazilian teenager Joao Fonseca.
The 23-year-old will play world number 62 Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan on Monday for a place in the last eight, where world number one Sinner is likely to be waiting.
DOMINANT WIN FOR JACK 👊#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/G6A4mMqc9B
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 31, 2025
Sinner and Draper have been good friends off the court for some time and regularly practice together, but the Italian admits things have changed.
'I'm very happy to have him as a friend, but he's now there, things are a little bit different,' he said.
'Of course, you know, we are very good friends off the court, but we practice a little bit less together, because we might know that we can face each other in the later stages of tournaments hopefully, because I always love to play against him.'
Draper extended his stay in Paris into the second week after thudding 32 winners past 18-year-old Fonseca and completing a statement win in just one hour and 46 minutes.
'I think it was a solid performance from my side, I did a good job,' said Draper.
'It was tough conditions. I felt like I started off well, and my level didn't really dip throughout the match. It was a good match against a good, up-and-coming player.'
Fonseca is a precocious talent who brings a huge, noisy contingent of supporters from his homeland wherever he goes.
There were fans in the famous yellow football shirts dotted all around Court Suzanne-Lenglen and they were making themselves heard throughout the early stages.
But Draper, who dealt with a partisan crowd when he beat 38-year-old Frenchman Gael Monfils on Thursday night, quickly dampened the South American enthusiasm.
'Mentally it was a good performance from me,' added the fifth seed. 'I'm happy to be in the second week here and hopefully there's more to come.
'My first two rounds, I played at night. Playing against Gael the other night, I didn't think I could hit the ball past him.
'It was so cold and I couldn't really do much but today the ball was getting up more and the faster conditions definitely suit me. Either way, I will be ready for my next round.
'Joao has caught the attention of everyone on tour, the players and the fans. Today my experience came through.
'I don't think he has played as many grand slams as I have but he has got an unbelievably bright future so all the best to him.'
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Jack Draper's four key strengths recall ‘King of Clay' Rafael Nadal
It all feels rather neat. As one left-hander with a nuclear forehand leaves the stage – via Rafael Nadal's touching farewell ceremony at Roland Garros last week – another is emerging from the pack. That second man is 23-year-old Jack Draper, the Surrey lad who has turned himself from an also-ran at this time last year to a proper contender, with his ranking closing in on No 4 in the world. It would be going too far to suggest that Draper is Nadal's heir apparent. He had barely seen a clay court until he reached voting age, and is still developing his relationship with this quirkiest of surfaces. But when you sat behind the court during Saturday's third-round match, in which Draper destroyed Brazilian wunderkind Joao Fonseca with his dive-bombing forehand, you found yourself in flashback territory. Telegraph Sport analyses the striking similarities. The Semtex forehand It's all about the trajectory. When the ball comes looping off Draper's racket, it looks as if it's flying into the next postcode. But then the top-spin grips, and the ball starts hurtling back towards the ground like Wile E Coyote after his legs have stopped spinning. On so many occasions in the Fonseca match, Draper's forehand dipped and landed in the final six inches of the court, before exploding upwards again at a sharp angle. As an opponent, you have two choices, and neither of them are good ones. 1. You can retreat way behind the baseline, and wait for the ball to come down at the end of its first bounce. Now you've become a passenger in the rally. You're giving Draper an age to wind up his shots and make decisions, while opening up the angles for him to push you left and right at will. 2. You can step in and take the ball early, but this requires perfect timing as it jumps off the court like a startled cat. Should Draper come through Monday's meeting with Alexander Bublik, he would probably earn a quarter-final with world No 1 Jannik Sinner. And the big question is whether Sinner – owner of the tour's smoothest groundstrokes – can pull off this feat regularly. So what does Draper himself think of the forehand comparison? 'It's tough for me to appreciate it because I'm the one hitting the ball,' he replied. 'But I see it when I'm on YouTube watching the highlights. I can appreciate it is getting better and better but I watch Rafa sometimes and I'm thinking, his forehand's a joke. So I want to get to that level but I definitely understand the comparison of how it's kicking up and the spin and the speed of it.' Draper 💥 #RolandGarros — Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 29, 2025 Draper's deft dropper If people don't remember Nadal as a drop-shot artiste, that's because they were distracted by his world-beating forehand. 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And if he is taken to five sets by Sinner on a hot day, one suspects that he might tire first, despite his unsparing approach to fitness training. Yet Draper's physicality is also a weapon. Not only does he intimidate opponents, but he has also outworked them over the first three rounds of this French Open. Even Bellucci, who stayed the course better than Fonseca and Monfils, looked weary by the end. At just 5ft 9in, he had to keep jumping up to meet that high-bouncing forehand somewhere near his strike zone, and all the effort drained the energy from his legs. When asked this week about the inspiration he takes from Nadal, Draper replied: 'It's partly about his game but more so his competitive nature, his doggedness, his ability to never go away. Andy [Murray] is the same but I loved Rafa to be honest, the grunt, everything. He was someone who massively inspired me to become the player I am and hopefully I can get to his level.' Relentless focus There's another reason why Nadal was able to accumulate such extraordinary statistics at Roland Garros (14 titles), Monte Carlo (11), Barcelona (12) and Rome (10). He was playing on the surface that rewards incremental superiority, stroke by punishing stroke. On hard courts, you can recover from the corners more easily in defence, and you can try to counterpunch your way out of trouble. Clay is all about building a positional advantage, which often means creeping forwards during a rally until the whole court is at your mercy. People think that Nadal hit spectacular shots, but he actually hated taking risks, and only did so when he had no alternative. It is a model that both Draper and Cameron Norrie – the other British left-hander who has reached the fourth round here in Paris – are learning from. 'I was able to play consistent kind of vintage Norrie tennis,' said Norrie on Saturday night, after defeating Draper's fellow Briton and great junior rival Jacob Fearnley. 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