The Scottish Mail on Sunday

You can’t lose to a guy with a metal hip!

Upstart Draper enjoys trash-talking illustriou­s practice victim Murray

- By Mike Dickson TENNIS CORRESPOND­ENT

JACK DRAPER was playing against Andy Murray last week, and he reports that the latter was not pleased at losing their full-on practice set.

‘I beat him 7-6, neither of us was in great form and he took it badly,’ says the 18-year-old who carries the weight of being Murray’s potential long-term successor.

These warm-ups for the coming ‘Battle of the Brits’, which begins on Tuesday, have all been accompanie­d by plenty of trash talk among the eight leading GB men participat­ing in the return of the pro game to these shores.

‘It’s a disgrace if you lose to a guy with a metal hip,’ adds Draper, slightly disarmingl­y. He delivers the line in a lightheart­ed manner, but you slightly wonder if many a true word is spoken in jest.

There is no shortage of youthful bravado about him and the fact is that whenever a group of players from the same country come up against each other there is an edge amid the camaraderi­e.

This will especially be the case as everyone has the return of the internatio­nal tours to shoot for, now that the US Open and lead-in events have been confirmed.

Draper finds himself cast in the role of upstart for next week. ‘We have had this group chat for six weeks. I’m getting so much abuse on it,’ he says. ‘I tried radio silence for a week but I was still getting blasted. I ended up having a couple of beers on a Saturday night and I went in on all of them, which was satisfying. Andy likes to give it out but he can take it.

‘Twenty years ago if you were giving someone a lot of gip or banter it was a sign that they respect you, but these days it might be taken as hurting your feelings. I just enjoy it. Next week is going to be really good, pride is on the line.’

Much attention will be on Murray (right), playing his first match since mid-November when he kicks off his opening group match on Tuesday, against Liam Broady.

‘I think he is just happy to be playing again,’ says Draper. ‘He has got a metal hip but he is still moving pretty well.’

While it never pays to read too much into the result of one practice set, the teenager’s 7-6 win is a reminder of how the coming week should be viewed.

One is that expectatio­ns about what Murray can achieve on this return to action should be tempered. Another is that Draper, a 6ft 3in left-hander from Surrey, is already quite a handful.

He is the second youngest player in the world’s top 300, and his ranking would doubtless be higher were it not for the current hiatus and him also having missed chunks of last season due to injury. His increasing­ly allcourt game does n ot much resemble that of Murray, but to watch them is to recognise some shared characteri­stics. There is a similar desperatio­n to win, and a naturally high tennis IQ when it comes to navigating their way through points. Both were brought up by parents with tennis expertise.

Draper’s mother, Nicky, is a coach and continues to be a top national senior player in her age group. More well-known is that his father, Roger, was chief executive of the Lawn Tennis Associatio­n, who has gone on to work in rugby league and, more recently, in football for the Saudi Arabian authoritie­s.

Since their divorce he has had little involvemen­t in his son’s tennis, which is now mainly in the hands of British coach Ryan Jones, who played a major part in the early developmen­t of Kyle Edmund and Croatia’s Borna Coric.

It would, of course, be ironic if Draper Snr is shown to have made such a direct contributi­on to the fortunes of the British game through the eventual feats of his son.

Another irony as next week’s event looms is that the coronaviru­s has done what neither Murray nor Roger Draper could do: lead to a major surge in tennis participat­ion as the numbers playing have substantia­lly risen during the past month of semi-lockdown. When he plays his opening match against Jay Clarke it will represent a resumption following what will be the longest rain delay of his career, which goes back to March 11.

‘I was in South Africa playing a tournament when it all kicked off,’ says Draper. ‘I was 5-4 in the third set of my second-round match when we came off for rain, and then got an email from ATP saying that after today we are cancelling everything. Then the rain didn’t stop so that was it, and we came home the next day.’

Having won 10 out of his previous 11 matches, the early-season momentum was abruptly stopped.

‘I played a lot of tennis at the start of the year and was ready for a break, but after two or three weeks at home the novelty wore off and I started getting bored. I just tried to stay fit and did no tennis for eight weeks, but the for the last month I’ve been able to work on things.

‘Ryan and I have done a lot of work on my transition game going forward and volleying, I can really feel the improvemen­t.’

This week’s event will be held behind closed doors at Roehampton. Organised by Jamie Murray, there will be no such thing as ballkids under strict anti-Covid protocols, and the line decisions will be made by Hawk-Eye.

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YOUTHFUL BRAVADO: Draper does not lack confidence as he prepares for event at Roehampton
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