"It's brutal": Jack Draper open about 'lonely' arduous struggles of early life on tour

Britain’s Jack Draper has opened up about the struggles he had early in his career. The 23-year-old is already regarded as one of the most talented players on the tour. He is currently taking part in an ATP 1000 event — Indian Wells — in California.

In that competition, he booked his place in the semifinal after beating America’s Ben Shelton in straight sets with a score of 6-4, 7-5. Draper has been recently quoted in a report where he spoke about how difficult it was early in his career. The Sutton-born star highlighted that it took him a while to convince himself that playing tennis professionally at the highest level is something he would like to do for a living.

“It's really difficult coming up through the futures and the challengers,” he said. “It's brutal. It's not Wimbledon, it's not Indian Wells, not coming to these nice places and everything is amazing. You know, it's going to a place for three, four weeks on end, you know, very lonely.

"When I was younger, I was thinking the sport was very different to what, you know, was the reality of it. So a lot of the stuff for me was kind of getting my head around the fact I think, you know, a couple years ago I went through a lot of injuries and I sat at sort of 40 in the world but I was sort of there, not really fully invested, so I looked to myself and I thought if I'm going to do this, then I'm gonna have to put in a hell of a lot of work. I'm going to, you know, just really take the ups and downs as they come. You know, look forward and be positive. I think from there, really, I got about 16 months of really good stuff, and, you know, I feel really healthy. I feel good in my mind, feel good in my body. I'm looking forward to hopefully what's to come.”

Draper will now face Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinal of the Indian Wells. The reigning world number three defeated Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 7-6.