Nerveless Draper emulates Edmund by reaching last four
Jake Draper beat Italian Lorenzo Musetti to become the first British player to reach the semi-finals of the boys’ singles since Kyle Edmund in 2013.
After becoming visibly frustrated in the first set, getting a warning from the umpire for hitting his ball into the air, the 16-year-old came from a set down to recover with composure beyond his years. He won seven games in a row between the second and third set to earn the opportunity to serve out the match, 6-7, 6-3, 6-1.
The Briton looked comfortable on Court 12, but admitted that there are some challenges that come with a first experience of the bigger courts at SW19. “I’ve never had those sorts of pressures before. Like Hawk-eye, I haven’t got one right, the one at the end was about two yards out,” he laughed. “[It] was probably the biggest court I’ve been on in terms of crowd, and pressure.”
Draper had a host of support courtside to cheer him on including his mother, brother and all four of his grandparents. His father, former Lawn Tennis Association chief executive Roger Draper, was not in attendance. Before he can focus on his tennis future he is first awaiting his GCSE results. “Hopefully, I will have passed my exams, and [will be] persuading my mum to noneducation and just focus on tennis.”
The short-term focus, however, will be his semi-final today against Nicolas Mejia of Colombia. Draper is the only British player to progress to the semi-finals in the junior singles after both Anton Matusevich and Emma Raducanu went out yesterday. Seventeen-year-old Matusevich struggled to find consistency against a strong opponent in China’s Tao Mu, who beat him 7-5, 6-1. Meanwhile, Raducanu, 15, was overpowered by Iga Swiatek of Poland, 6-0, 6-1.