Former Spanish player
Feliciano Lopez has backed Jack
Draper to have a ‘good chance’ against
Carlos Alcaraz and
Jannik Sinner at
Wimbledon
2025. The third Grand Slam of the year will begin on June 30 in London.
This year, Spain’s Alcaraz will be defending his title in
the men’s singles category. He won it last year after beating Novak Djokovic in
the final in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 6-2, 7-6. Alcaraz’s countryman, Lopez, spoke to
Sky Sports in an interview published on June 23, discussing the chances of Draper in the upcoming mega-event.
Draper has had some impressive performances this year, which have lifted him as high as fourth in the ATP rankings. Lopez admitted that
while the gap between Draper and the likes of Alcaraz and world number one
Sinner remains big, he can see the 23-year-old having a realistic chance of
competing against arguably the two best players currently playing in the world.
Lopez stated that he has been impressed by how much Draper has improved, especially
in the last 18 months, which he calls ‘truly amazing’.
"I still see a bit of a gap between Carlos, Jannik
and the rest of the players,” said Lopez. “Jack [Draper] and Novak [Djokovic] are
probably the ones that could beat them and grass is the surface where Jack and
Novak will have a bigger chance. But the way they've been playing lately, I
don't see any signs of weakness from Carlos or Jannik. I think Jack is a very
complete player. I think if he keep developing his game, he'd have a good
chance against Carlos and Jannik on grass. He probably needs to be a bit more
consistent week after week. When he's able to reach his best level I think he
has proved already that he can beat anyone. We saw some of that in Indian Wells
when he won the title, also in Madrid, and actually he's one of the players
that I love watching. The amount of improvement in the last 18 months is truly
amazing. I remember two years ago at the US Open, when he was preparing for his
first-round match. My concern was whether he was going to play because he was
coming back from a shoulder injury and had pulled out of the Winston-Salem Open
the week before, so I was wondering if he was going to be able to compete over
the best-of-five sets. Two years after that, he's number four in the world.
It's truly amazing what he has done and he's for me the player who's going to
be willing to fight it out with Carlos and Novak for the big titles on
grass."