Jack Draper’s breakthrough run on the clay courts of Madrid was halted at the final hurdle in a bruising, physical tussle against the 14th seed Casper Ruud, who held his nerve to win his first Masters 1000 title.
A two-time French Open finalist, Ruud was competing in the seventh significant final of his career. He had lost all six of those previous matches, including both those Paris finals in 2022 and 2023, the 2022 US Open final and the ATP finals. He has, at last, clinched one of the biggest titles in the game.
“It is a mix of somewhat of a relief and happiness and just pure joy,” said the 26-year-old Ruud. “I know, based on the last years that I’ve had on tour, how tough it is to do well at the biggest tournaments, and I’ve never been able to get over the finish line as a champion, but today I was able to and this week here in Madrid, so extremely happy and proud, of course, that I was able to stay focused in the tournament.”
After two supreme weeks in the Spanish capital, this is a painful defeat for Draper to digest after he led 5-3 in the opening set before conceding four consecutive games. He recovered impressively, fighting back to force a final set but he was outlasted by one of the best clay-court tennis players in the world.
Still, Draper solidified his status as among the very top contenders in men’s tennis on every single surface and at all levels.
“Just fresh off losing a really tough match in a final, it really hurts,” said the 22-year-old. “But at the same time, I think I’ve enjoyed a lot of really good successes here, I’ve come through a lot of matches, and so maybe this loss and maybe being in a final and not quite getting over the line just helps me to fuel my fire a bit more that I can. I need to keep onpushing, I need to keep on improving.”
Before this tournament, Draper’s best results on clay were a couple of quarter-finals at lowly ATP 250 events. He had never won three consecutive ATP matches on the surface or beaten a top-30 player. Although he fully believed he had the ability to thrive on clay, he arrived in Madrid searching for a breakthrough on the surface. He has done just that.
“People say: ‘Oh, I’m not very good on the clay.’ Whereas I knew I was good on the clay,” said Draper. “I had a couple of really tight losses last year, and I just needed to get my foot in the door somewhere to show that I’m able to compete to a really high level on this surface. I think this week has shown that, and it’s shown it to myself, shown it to others.”
Alongside his new career-high ATP ranking of No 5, Draper sits No 2 in the ATP race, which charts results within the calendar year and he is now the only British man, other than Andy Murray, to reach Masters 1000 finals on both hard and clay courts. Draper won at Indian Wells in March. There is no doubt that he has the ability to win a major title. “I’m really proud of the way I’ve been the first few months of this season,” he said.
“I think the exciting thing is there’s so much more to come from myself. I feel like there’s still areas of my game that I can really improve, and that’s very motivating for me and my coach and my team that I honestly feel like I’m at the start of my journey. So I’m going to keep on improving and keep on pushing hard and keep these tough moments in my head to keep on driving myself to be better.”
Ruud has now won 125 matches and 12 titles on clay over the past five years, more than any other player on the ATP tour since the beginning of 2020. “Even though I won today, my record in big finals is still not good, it’s 1-6,” he said. “I’ve been in many unbelievable and incredible positions in my career, and I’ve been able to experience some great things and, unfortunately, have been on the losing spectrum of many of those matches, but that’s OK. In many ways, my career has gone better than maybe I thought was possible sometimes.
The man from Oslo added: “Of course I always dreamed about winning tournaments like this or grand slams or becoming world No 1, and I’ve been fairly close, but it’s not like I was serving for the match anytime or super-leading, like crazy, and then choked and lost, in a way.
“So I’ve just played players that were better than me and I’ve tried to learn from that, and think that one day there will come another opportunity and maybe I can seize it and, I guess, that was the key to the victory today.”
Source: theguardian.com
