I’m quite an anxious human, says Jack Draper as he admits he must work on his intensity

New York might be famous for the steam that rises in plumes from roadside vents, but it was a different sort of steaminess that reduced Jack Draper to a sweaty, nauseous wreck on Friday night.

The humid and airless conditions on Arthur Ashe Stadium have claimed several victims over the years, even causing the pristine Roger Federer to impersonate Aquaman during a rare 2018 loss to John Millman. Draper – who vomited three times on court during his semi-final defeat at the US Open – was only the latest to suffer.

Yet there is also a pattern developing here with Draper, which extends beyond the confines of Flushing Meadows. Three-and-a-half years ago, he collapsed in the heat of Miami on his maiden appearance on the ATP Tour. In January, he vomited in a courtside bin after scoring the first five-set win of his career at the Australian Open.

After the match, Draper explained why he is prone to these sorts of episodes. He suggested that it is a case of being – in his own words – “quite an anxious human being”.

“I’m someone who gives it all on every point,” Draper told the BBC, “and I’m very intense and very… sort of just wired almost. It’s been important for me to sort of be calm over time. I think I’m doing a better job of that. But sometimes it’s still something that I’m working on.”

Struggling to get a grip

From the early stages of this match, both men were drenched in so much sweat that their clothes – even Draper’s unusually baggy fuchsia kit – were clinging to their bodies. They were sending their rackets off to be regripped because the handles were slipping in their hands.

Sinner also looked slightly wobbly on his legs in the middle of the second set – an epic struggle that lasted fully 89 minutes, and found both men calling the trainer to the court after the ninth game. But Sinner had appeared in three previous semi-finals at the majors, as well as 28 more on the regular tour. The world No1 was able to call on the experience and confidence that Draper so obviously lacked.

The importance of mental stability in these moments was driven home by the second semi-final between the two Americans, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe.

Even though this match was played in cooler evening conditions, Tiafoe’s physical performance declined sharply around the three-hour mark, and he admitted afterwards that it “probably had a lot to do with nerves”.

For Draper, the disappointment of his 7-5, 7-6, 6-2 defeat was leavened by all the information he had collected on his first trip to Ashe – the biggest stage in tennis, which holds almost 24,000 fans as well as all that deathly-still air.

His career has never followed the meteoric trajectory of a Carlos Alcaraz, or indeed of his childhood friend and contemporary Emma Raducanu. Instead, Draper’s progress has been more laborious, with a pause on each rung of the ladder to regain his balance. And yet, as we have noted already this week, there are occasions when the tortoise winds up travelling further than the hare.

Draper drawing on the positives

Asked after the match about how he can continue to improve, Draper offered a simple and encouragingly mature answer. “I don’t think I need to do anything different,” he said. “I’ve got great people around me, I’m doing all the right things.

“When I came here last year I was 120 in the world, barely played the whole season. I think I’ll be leaving here this week top 20. I’m breaking new barriers down the whole time.

“With Jannik or Carlos or some of these young players, they’ve been on the tour for about three or four years now, constantly playing, constantly learning, constantly taking wins and losses and experiencing losing in the quarters or semis of a grand slam.

“This is my first proper year, I’d say, because of all my injuries and all my setbacks, so I’m a few years behind almost. I think I just need to keep on learning, keep on growing, keep on having situations like today where I came unstuck and [asking] how am I going to do it different next time?”

After the match, Sinner and Draper shared a dripping embrace at the net. They are firm friends, who message each other regularly, and the mutual respect was obvious as they walked off the court arm in arm.

“He’s made his breakthrough this week, playing some amazing tennis,” said Sinner of Draper in the interview room. “His ball-striking and choosing the right shots in the right time – there are some feelings you have with certain players, and he is one of them. I know that he’s potentially winning some big titles in the future.”

As for Draper, once he had managed to get some fluid on board, he sounded enthused by the tight margins of the first two sets. As John McEnroe had observed on commentary, he had gone toe-to-toe with the world No1 and performed creditably, at least until he blew a gasket at around the two-hour mark.

“Even today I’m nowhere near what I’m capable of,” Draper said. “There’s still so much improvement in terms of my serve, my forehand, in many areas of my game. It’s extremely positive for me to know that I’m not anywhere near my potential and yet I’m still making a grand-slam semi.

“It wasn’t an unbelievably long match with Jannik today but there’s a lot of areas where I am troubling him, still. If I keep improving my tennis, improving my physicality, and working on my emotional stuff, I don’t see why I can’t be consistently competing with the best players in the world.”