His victories over Tomas Machac, Alex de Minaur, Botic van de Zandschulp, Zhang Zhizhen, and Facundo Diaz Acosta have advanced him to the final four, where he will face world number one Jannik Sinner.
We examine the path in tennis that has led Draper to this point.
early signs of potential at Wimbledon
In British tennis circles, Draper was always seen as an interesting talent, but it wasn’t until the Wimbledon juniors in 2018 that he really started to make an impression on a larger audience.
Even though the left-hander was only 16 years old, he gained recognition at the All England Club.
He defeated the highly-regarded Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the quarterfinals, advancing to the men’s semifinals at SW19 this year. Later, he defeated Nicolas Majia in a thrilling best-four match, 7-6 (7-5) 6-7 (6-8) 19-17.
Draper fell to Tseng Chun-hsin of Chinese Taipei in the championship match, possibly still fatigued from such a great competition, but there was enough evidence to suggest there would be plenty more from him.
