Wimbledon comeback is perfectly timed by Murray

Jack Draper lands a nightmare draw against Taylor Fritz, but with a legend in his corner, his confidence has returned

- JAMIE BRAIDWOOD AT WIMBLEDON

Over the past year, as the tennis world whirled and rotated around him, Jack Draper has spent too long on the outside, looking in. “I just had to stay away from it,” the 24-year-old said. “It would wind me up to watch tennis because I wanted to be out there.”

He had been ranked fourth in the world, and arrived at Wimbledon lifted by winning the biggest title of his career at Indian Wells and reaching the final of the Madrid Open. Draper wasn’t quite on top of the world but he was “feeling incredible”, unlocking new parts of his powerful game to push himself even higher. The next step for the Briton was to take the challenge to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner at the grand slams.

But then Draper “just broke down”. From his second-round defeat to Marin Čilić at Wimbledon last year to the return of the following grass-court season, Draper was “stopped in his tracks” and played just nine matches. The lengthy layoff was due to a painful bone bruising injury on his racket arm and then, a few months ago, a knee injury caused in part by a new serving motion. He tumbled down the rankings and when the slide stopped, he bottomed out at No 160.