Jack Draper is pretty lucky, and he knows it. There cannot be many better mentors in tennis than Andy Murray, and Draper has spent years hitting against and talking tennis with the three-time grand slam champion.
It must be quite surreal for the 21-year-old, who vividly remembers sitting in the stands on Centre Court as Murray beat Roger Federer to win Olympic gold in 2012, to now find himself rubbing shoulders as a peer with one of Britain’s greatest ever players.
After a Davis Cup win in September, Murray was even Draper’s driver, giving him a lift back to London while the youngster drank a few beers and sang along to the Proclaimers, as one viral clip revealed.
“It was a video that I sent into our group chat on the Davis Cup for them to have a laugh, and then obviously made its rounds after he posted it since then. He’s a great actor!” says Draper, insisting that Murray’s dead-pan reaction to his singing was put on for the camera.
“It was good fun. And nice to spend time with him away from just tennis, tennis all the time because he’s got a really fun personality to be around. He’s quite different obviously, growing up in sport and tennis, and maybe hasn’t gone to uni and gone out on many nights out or anything like that.
“So he’s got a bit of a different sense of humour, but it’s great to be around him.”
Those Davis Cup ties in Manchester and Malaga have also given Draper a taste of representing Great Britain, rather than just himself, and is dreaming of doing it again in Paris next summer at the Olympics.
“I didn’t really know what to expect [at Davis Cup],” Draper adds.
“Obviously I’ve been told it’s a big thing, I’ve been told it’s great to do, but until you experience it you don’t really appreciate how great the crowds are and how much it means to you to play for your country.
“Out of all of Andy’s achievements, winning Wimbledon and doing all these incredible things, I think winning two Olympic Games is for me one of his best. It’s incredible. If I’m in the position to play, I’ll be ready to go because I love playing for my country and I love doing that stuff.”
Despite a 15-year age gap, Draper and Murray are firm friends and the former world No 1 has been an invaluable confidant as his team-mate makes his way in the professional game.
“His [advice] is just keep on doing what I’m doing,” Draper says.
“Obviously, everyone’s on their own path, and by spending a lot of time with him, I know he’s a great player, and I know that he rates me highly.
“He just tells me to keep going [because] there’s no magical formula in tennis to being in that position. If you’re practising well, and if you’re trying to do all the right things, then it’s only a matter of time before you keep on progressing, keep knocking at the door and keep improving your ranking.
“And he just says to not stress too much, not rush it, because it’s a long journey. There’s tournaments every week, it’s easy to forget how well you’re doing.”
Draper is also perhaps not helped by the fact that he benchmarks himself by two peers at the top of the game in Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The latter was a direct rival of Draper’s in juniors and the pair remain friends, while Alcaraz is still only 20 but has flown far higher, a grand slam champion who has been world No 1.
“I want to be competing with those two. I see myself being right up there with them. It’s just my past been a little bit different,” Draper adds.
“I’ve had certain things that have held me back, whether it be injury, or Covid or other stuff. I feel like they’ve had maybe three or four years on the tour at a high level to build up their experience, their physical [side] and just how they go about business on the tour.
“So that’s where they’re different to me, they’ve just got more exposure to that level and more experience. And I’ve just got to accept that with the stuff I’ve had, that’s happened for a reason. I’ve had a lot of time to work on my body and accept where I’m at with things.
“I’ve no doubt that in the next couple of years, I want to be right up there with them. Patience is obviously a really important thing.”
As well as the tour, Draper is a little short on life experience. He moved out of the Surrey family home in March to share a flat in Putney with fellow tennis player Paul Jubb, and quickly learned that “I didn’t really know how to do a lot of basic life things”. He adds: “We have learned how to cook together, washing clothes.”
Many expected Draper to be cleaning up trophies at tour level this year too after graduating from the second-tier Challenger tour with flying colours in 2022.
But, not for the first time in his career, injury struck. A shoulder tear in practice at the French Open forced him to miss the entire grass-court swing with nearly three months spent on the sidelines. He dropped out of the top 100 and had to watch his home grand slam from the sofa.
It also gave him time to reflect on his accession to as high as 38 in the world, his ranking when he lost to Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open in January.
“When you first step into it [the main tour], it’s a bit of a shock to the system because you’ve obviously been grinding in the Futures and the Challengers and all of a sudden you’re playing tour.
“Everything’s a bit nicer, but instead of guys ranked 100 to 250, you’re playing guys ranked top 50 every week and you know that if any match you’re not quite there, you’re gonna lose.”
The physicality of professional tennis is the biggest challenge for Draper, who already has five tour-level retirements on his record.
He has changed fitness trainer again this winter, bringing on board Steve Kotze, a South African specialist with “a huge rep” in British tennis, having worked with Andy Murray and Kyle Edmund previously, as well as Laura Robson, Dan Evans and Anne Keothavong.
This time last year, it was former Olympic sprinter and bobsledder Dejan Vojnovic charged with getting Draper over the injury hump. The British No 4 enjoyed the work they did together, but fears it maybe “wasn’t the right work for me”, and will take a different approach with Kotze.
After hours spent in the physio room, he desperately hopes this will be the answer.
“It’s difficult because there’s obviously a lot of athletes out there who have a lot of talent and they don’t put the work in or they rely on their skills, and they don’t have great programme or people around them.
“But I’ve always worked really hard, I’ve always tried to do the right things for my body, whether that’s diet or looking after what I’m doing off the court or on the court as well.
“I’m in a great place and I’m hoping that Mr Injured is behind me now.”
Mr Injured made it to No 38 in the world. Who knows how high a fitter version can go.