Jack Draper says his body is still adjusting after a long-term injury, despite an impressive victory over Novak Djokovic at Indian Wells.
After a long wait, Draper returned to the tennis tour last month and, with a new buzzcut in tow, he has already put together a string of impressive performances.
He reached the fourth round of the so-called “fifth slam” in the California desert, playing the most matches at a single tournament since Queen’s Club last summer and beating Djokovic for the first time in his career in a two-and-a-half hour contest.
Although he lost in straight sets to Daniil Medvedev in the next round, it was an important milestone considering his recent injury history, and a lengthy eight-and-a-half month rehab for a bone bruise on his left humerus. Getting back to the heights that saw Draper become world No 4 in June last year is understandably still a process.
“Obviously with the injury I had, being off court for a long time, not only did it take a while to be where I wanted to be, but also the fact that I wasn’t able to play really intense, competitive tennis for a long time,” Draper explained.
“After I played Novak, and played Daniil, I didn’t have anything in my body, I was knackered.
“Whereas if I had more exposure to the tour, more opportunities to play, your body gets harder and you just get used to it. So my body is still readjusting to the demands of what I want to be able to do.”
After his quarter-final exit, Draper lost 800 of the 1,000 rankings points that he earned for winning Indian Wells last year and dropped back 12 places in the rankings to No 26. Ahead of the Miami Open, he is now the British No 2 behind Cameron Norrie, who also reached the quarter-finals in Palm Springs.
After beating Djokovic, Norrie said Draper had sent him a text message with a reminder that he was still in the top spot, although the next day the positions were reversed.
“I didn’t look at the rankings for a very long time,” Draper said, adding: “In press, after I played Novak, they said ‘you’re still going to be British No 1’, and that was the first time I thought about it. So I messaged him [Norrie] and said, ‘I’m still holding on to it for a little bit longer’.
“It’s not like a competition, I’m really happy to see Cam back playing good tennis and playing at a great level, which I think he’s doing, and I think it’s really healthy to have a bit of that, pushing each other to do better.”
The frenetic nature of a tennis tour, which includes almost 11 months on the road, can mean there is little time to reflect on things. For Draper, the opportunity to think back to the milestone win over Djokovic, a player he has admired since he was a child and refers to as “the best of all time”, came on a plane.
“I’ve played against Andy [Murray], Rafa [Nadal], Novak, these were three of the big four, the ones I was looking up to, the ones I was watching since I was young,” he said.
“On the flight over here [to Miami], it was the first time I thought about it and to have that achievement is obviously something that I’ll always be immensely proud of.”