"No more going out and no more wasting energy on random things": Change in mindset helped Jack Draper morph into Grand Slam force

Jack Draper was for a long time seen as a player who could achieve but not without being beset with injury problems and not achieving perhaps what he set out to in the infancy of his career. But success and mindset shifts changed that.

Draper is now in the semi-finals of the 2024 US Open where he will face off with Jannik Sinner. A far cry from his time having to grind on Futures and smaller level tournaments. This rise included winning Stuttgart earlier in the summer.

"Winning Stuttgart was a huge moment for me," Draper told Sky Sports' Tim Henman. "I played two finals before that and both times I came up short and it was something like I was a good enough player to do it but I just wasn't getting over the line and I don't think whatever level you're playing at - winning five matches and winning a tournament is an incredible achievement.

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"When I won that one, it felt strange. There was a massive sigh of relief and it actually made me believe in myself a lot more. It made me a lot more confident in my own skin and really made me believe that by beating the players that I beat, especially to win the tournament, I felt like I belonged a lot more at the really highest level."

But it also saw him shift mindset as he shunned outside distractions to become an all encompassing tennis player as opposed to having other aspects of his life taking precedence.

"A lot of the players know my talent and know my tennis capabilities and probably see me as a dangerous player," he said.

"It's been important for me to show my face on the tour most weeks and show that I'm physically robust. That mentally, I'm all in, and I'm doing all the right things, and that also gains respect from the other players."

"My perspective changed a lot last year when I began to have a more working mentality where I knew that if I wanted to be one of the best players in the world I had to mature early and give everything to my tennis.

"No more going out and no more wasting energy on random things. I had to really lock myself away and really focus on what I really wanted to do."

"I'm not the kind of person who is happy to get to a certain point. I'm always thinking of the next challenge, which is not always a good thing in life at times.

"I wish I was a bit more appreciative of what I'm doing in life and achieving. As a tennis player you're always hungry for the next thing, you always want something more, and achieve bigger things.

"There's no time to be happy of where I'm at, at the moment. I'm looking forward to Friday."

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Semi Finals !!! Thank you for the support 🤝

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