The men’s British No. 1 Jack Draper says he has been hurt by criticism and doubts about his character following his controversial match point in his fourth-round victory over Félix Auger-Aliassime at the Cincinnati Open.
The athlete said: “I’ve always valued myself on being honest and a good person… Forget the tennis – that is one of the most important things to me in my life. So to obviously see that stuff, and see people talking about you for the first time in a negative way – and questioning your integrity and stuff like that – it’s obviously difficult to see.”
He added: “I don’t blame people for doing that. Obviously, on the slow-mo, when you watch it from the side, it’s very clear it’s an illegal shot. There’s no doubt about that. But when you’re in the moment and you serve out wide and the guy’s hit a 95mph ball at your feet, you just put a racket down and I didn’t know what happened. I looked at the umpire straight away. I think I took a swipe at it, because I thought it was going in the bottom of the net, and then it hit the net and went over. It was just like a split second of madness.”
The controversial match point
In an attempt to finish off an outstanding performance against Auger-Aliassime, Draper smacked the ball into the ground by mistake, causing it to bounce up and dribble over the net instead of executing a forehand half-volley. The double bounce was unnoticed by the umpire, Greg Allensworth, and an irate Auger-Aliassime patiently stated why Draper should have lost the point.
Draper was eventually judged the winner despite his insistence that he didn’t know what had transpired. He had offered to replay the point if they could check the video replay.
“But honestly, in that moment, I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t know – that was the honest truth of it. And I think anyone would be lying if they’re saying they’re not hurt by seeing a lot of comments saying you’re a cheat, you’re a liar. And that I would have done this, and I would have done that…. It’s hard in that situation to know what to do and also it’s good because it’s my first experience of having negativity and having criticism, and that’s all part of being a top athlete,” the athlete added.
Despite all the criticism, Draper’s run to the Cincinnati quarter-finals, which included a victory over Tsitsipas, was another encouraging breakthrough. Having been seeded at the US Open for the first time in his career, he now genuinely has the spotlight as the top-ranked British player following Andy Murray’s retirement.
Source: The Guardian