“But have you seen how it breaks it? Where did that arm come from?” Cañonazo after cannon. Thus, again and again. Jack Draper hits and hits, not a few comes the memory of that Madrid, also left -handed, like English, who reached the tournament in an orange lamborghini and used to burst the ball with an extra dose of strength over others. Fernando Verdasco never managed to overcome the barrier towards the semifinals in the Magic Fund, but the British does now, the boy who conducts a pole and who punishes everything. It is suffered this time the Italian Matteo Arnaldi, used as a result of the 6-0 and 6-4 definitive. Start -up, control later. And semifinals. That is, Novak Djokovic falls a position and he, booming, already is among the top five, the fifth.
There is a player, it is said that of the good ones. It grows and grows. Coronado in March in Indian Wells, he is two steps to do so in the Spanish capital, a direct witness these days of evolution. Gone is that stage in which the physicist prevented him from taking off. “when I arrived at the circuit I was going up in the classification, but then I suffered a few very tight defeats. I tried to find my model as a player, and I think that towards the end of last year I began to get what I was trying to do. I am getting stronger physically and mentally, and all that shows in the game,” he says seriously before the journalists.
They slide Nadal’s name, but today his mold seems more similar to that of Verdasco, whose shots carried in his day a load of power greater than that of the Mallorcan. From very little, Draper extracts a lot. In any case, among them there is a link, being the only two left -handed top-5 of the circuit in this century. Also the mentality. “I needed to be constant, trust the work I was doing and know that doing things well day after day, preparing my best, that would help me to be more regular,” he continues, without his next rival has yet been certified. It will be Lorenzo Musetti, Gabriel Diallo brake (6-4 and 6-3).
Both will cross this Friday (not before 20.00, Teledeport and Movistar+), after they have crashed Casper Ruud and Francisco chering it in the first turn (16.00). The Argentine progresses – the best positioned Latin American in the rankingvirtually the 18th; The same triumphs (24) that Carlos Alcaraz this season-and tries to lift the Nordic head, to which they ask and open after having defeated Daniil Medvedev (6-3 and 7-5). They have been bad times, he admits. “I have had some mental health problems this year,” he says, “but I looked for professional help and that has helped me a lot. I have noticed great improvement, I am very good to have someone to talk about my feelings.”
And deepen: “I have been honest with myself and I feel good again. Tennis is not easy and there came a time when I felt overwhelmed. I felt like a hamster on the wheel; I took many steps, but nothing progressed. The current calendar makes it impossible for us to stop. Now I have returned to the wheel, but with a different mentality.” Draper himself adds: “It is mentally very difficult to give one hundred percent every day. We also have a life out of the track, and things happen. We are not robots.” And closing it shares it, but attenuates after beating Jakub Mensik 3-6, 7-6 (5) and 6-2: “No, I do not feel a slave, or closely … you have to dedicate many hours and effort, but it is our choice. In life not everything is pink.”
He burnoutgeneralized burning, a recurring theme also in tennis. The Argentine speaks of adjusting the balance, of passions and balances, and the one that is gradually hitting the key is musetti, again plethoric, again dismissing delicious balls at night. Carrara seduces Madrid with his postin tennis, always elegant and increasingly accurate. He is also resolved. In Montecarlo, a muscular misfortune prevented him from competing the final to Carlos Alcaraz, after having taken the first set to the Murcian, and his good work in this first third of the year has placed him on the eighth world step. I had never tasted the top-10.
The British footprint
A. C. | Madrid
Last year, at this same heights, Draper held the 43rd position of the world list. It began 2025 as the 15th and now, after a meritorious escalation, it will appear from Monday among the top five. Only three British had been achieved until now in the open era (since 1968): Greg Rusedski (1997), Tin Henman (1999) and Andy Murray (2008).
The last of them triumphed in the Magic Box in 2015, when he struggled with Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, and previously did it in 2008, the last edition in which the tournament was played at the Rockodrome of the Casa de Campo. Then he surpassed the Frenchman Gilles Simon and seven years later to Nadal. Among the girls, no player of his nationality achieved the Madrid title.
