by How far can Emma Raducanu’s comeback take her? According to her old friend and near-exact contemporary Jack Draper, Raducanu is far too good to be written off as a mere wonder. Instead, Draper suggests that she will soon threaten to land big titles again.
Born 11 months before Raducanu, Draper – who turns 22 next week – grew up playing alongside her in junior events such as the Orange Bowl and the Eddie Herr Invitational, both of which staged in the international tennis mecca of Florida.
This winter, however, they are both back in the less exotic clinics of Roehampton in south-west London – the site of the National Tennis Centre. Draper is tackling the usual physical jitters that come with an offseason training block, while Raducanu is building up with full-tilt hitting sessions after her double arm operations in May. On Thursday, she spent a few hours sparring with Harriet Dart No. 2 of Britain, and she looked good in her recovery.
Progress has been slow at first, causing Raducanu to miss her initial return date of December 2nd for an exhibition event in Macau. But she entered the Australian Open, which starts on January 14, as well as the same build-up tournament she played in Auckland last year.
When asked if Raducanu can deliver a successful 2024, Draper replied: “Yes, of course. When she’s fit, she’s an incredible player. I think she has been struggling with injuries for a long time. I think people forget that she was still in school before the US Open. She didn’t have much training. Of course, she had that huge run and achieved what people dream of achieving in their entire career. And then I think expecting so much from her after that is a little bit of a mistake because maybe she doesn’t have a lot of that physical foundation and the experience of playing on the tour and all those things that the all those other players.
“But I think the talent that she’s got and the maturity as well, to do what she did at the US Open, that hasn’t been on display,” Draper added. “I think if she can get to a good level of fitness, where she’s built up that resilience over months and years and keeps working on her game, she’ll be up there with the best in the world and she’ll be in competition. for grand slams again. It’s just one of those where the fitness side of things is, it’s not a quick fix, it takes a lot of time.”
Draper knows this better than most, as his own ascension up the world rankings – albeit tempting at times – has also been plagued by many setbacks and strains. The worst so far was the torn shoulder blade he suffered in May, while preparing for the French Open, which canceled his entire grass court season.
But says Draper – who finished 2023 at No. 61 after reaching his first ATP final in Sofia – now that the enforcement version has arrived at the right time for him.
“Until the French Open. I didn’t feel like I was improving too much,” he said. “I had this chronic hip thing that I couldn’t get rid of, it was playing with injury a lot. And I didn’t understand the situation I was in. I had spent so much time grinding with the Futures and the Challengers [lower-tier tournaments], and getting through those levels is tough. You lose sight of your goals in tennis, you lose sight of your vision, because it’s not what you expected when you were younger. You expect everything to be Wimbledon strawberries and cream: very, very nice. But then you go out on the trip and that’s not it.
“At the end of last year, I was still stuck in that whole mode of like, ‘This is hard.’ The moment I changed this year was when I had the big injury to my shoulder and I had a two-month period to look back at what I had achieved and realize that I was in a different place now. I don’t think it was a bad thing to drop my ranking a lot and have time to really work on my body. Since then I have been extremely motivated. I think I’ve had a change of heart in terms of my outlook on life. And I feel like a big part of the reason I dropped to 130 but came back so quickly is that I’m a much better player now than I was when I was 38 in the world.”
If the judgment of his peers is the best way to rate a player, Draper is set for further progress in 2024. World No 5 Andrey Rublev is among those rooting for him to make a quick transition to the game’s elite . A left-handed swinging serve, backed by a wide range of strokes, has already claimed two top-five wins, as well as the rare distinction of winning Novak Djokovic’s set on Center Court at Wimbledon.
But Draper’s role model is one of his friends from juniors – Italy’s Jannik Sinner – who recently scored two wins against Djokovic to suggest he could challenge for the No. 1 next year. Unlike Raducanu, Draper had to gradually work his way up the ladder. In the end, one wonders if this would work to his advantage.
“Everybody always says, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,'” Draper explained. “‘Get physical, keep learning about yourself, keep finding perspective’. Trying to get exposure to that high level, it comes with time. It seems like really slow steps. But suddenly, you may have a great result and your belief systems may change. I keep getting the same advice: ‘You’re going to get there. It’s just a matter of time.”
