Despite being freshly demoted to British No 2, Jack Draper has taken confidence from his Indian Wells performances which included a career first win over Novak Djokovic and hopes to continue his good form at the Miami Open.
As he continues his comeback from injury, Draper is certain that he has the skill to be competing with the best still, he just needs to fine tune his body and get more court time to reach his full potential.
He received a bye through to the second round of the Miami Open and will face the winner of Reilly Opelka and Nuno Borges on either March 20 or 21.
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Novak Djokovic was left lying on the floor after an incredible 26-shot rally with Jack Draper at Indian Wells
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Cameron Norrie has replaced Jack Draper as British No 1, but it could change hands a number of times this year
“It [Indian Wells record] does help me for sure,” Draper said.
“When you’ve had a lot of injuries in the past you’re able to understand that if you put in good preparation when you’re injured that anything is possible and you can get back to playing at a really high level.
“I’ve always been pretty good like that even though it’s probably not the best thing to be, I don’t want to be injured but those matches have helped me understand how I need to keep on improving and growing.
“I think when you’ve been out injured for a while it’s no necessarily about the actual injury you had, it’s about getting your body to feeling robust enough.
“For instance, last week playing those intense matches, you have to back up those performances and against Daniil [Medvedev] I was completely gassed out of energy.
“If you want to win those big events you have to be able to back it up and keep going.
“That’s the physical aspect but for the tennis aspect the more matches you play, the more times you can get out there, and understand your game better, the more you are able to do good things.”
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Martina Navratilova dissects the hindrance rule in tennis and debates whether the call against Jack Draper in his Indian Wells match against Daniil Medvedev was the correct decision
The 24-year-old’s defence of his Indian Wells title ended in controversy against Medvedev less than 24 hours after a gruelling 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-5) win over Djokovic – the first in his career.
Despite his defence coming to an end, the Briton is eager to get hold of his second Masters 1000 title, although he faces a tough path to get there.
Draper, if he makes it so far, could face sixth seed Taylor Fritz in the third round, followed by world No 12 Casper Ruud in the fourth round, with the potential for a meeting with the world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals.
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