Preview US Open 2024 Men's Semi-Final: World No.1 Jannik Sinner aims to live up to favourite tag against rising Brit Jack Draper

A pretty interesting matchup awaits us in the US Open semi-final as Jannik Sinner and Jack Draper face off for a spot in the final.

A few days ago, Jack Draper opened up about his relationship with Jannik Sinner, revealing that they’re somewhat friends after first getting to know each other in the locker room. Since then, they’ve started texting and have encouraged each other through hardships that they both endured. They even played doubles recently and are obviously on great terms. Now they’re going to get a chance to contest a pretty heated battle, so let’s see how it might go.

It won’t be the first time they’ve played against each other because that happened a few years ago at the Queen’s Club event. Draper actually won that match in two tiebreak sets, but things are expected to go a bit differently this time around. For one, Draper has improved as a player and is better than ever, but the same goes for Jannik Sinner as well. He’s improved even more dramatically as the reigning world number one and a player who has already won one Grand Slam this year.

His level has been absurdly high for much of the year, and he came into New York after winning the Cincinnati Open. That confidence-boosting run had a huge impact on the Italian, who has looked largely unbothered in most of his matches. Some of them have featured some problems because he dropped a set in a handful of matches, but you never had a sense that he was really being troubled. None of those dropped sets made anybody believe that he was going to lose the match.

The Italian has been winning matches largely by being unbelievably consistent from the baseline. Very few players can hit at Sinner's level, and nobody he’s faced so far has been able to do that. The Italian has been incredible so far, and that’s likely going to continue against Draper. That’s actually the most important equation of this matchup: how Draper handles Sinner’s overwhelming pressure from the baseline.

The Brit is not known as the biggest hitter on tour, but he’s been rather consistent at the US Open. Part of what made Draper so devastating is his serve. He is serving at a superb level, which gets him many short balls and allows him to unload with his lefty forehand. It’s just like target practice for him.

The serve carries so much pressure that he easily gets the kind of balls he likes to get. That won’t be happening against Sinner because he’s a much better player than any of the players Draper has faced so far, and he’s a much better returner as well. Sinner gets the ball pretty deep, which will put Draper under a lot of pressure.

The Italian is likely going to force Draper to play a lot of rallies because that’s how he’ll beat him. In any long rally, Draper is likely going to be on the defence, which is where he doesn’t do that well. Sinner is expected to win most of those long rallies, and that’s what he’ll try to do. For Draper, finding the serve is paramount. If he doesn’t have the serve, he’s going to be like a sitting duck out there. There won’t be much he can do, so hitting his serve and keeping the rallies short is hugely important for him.

If he manages to do that, then the match could get a bit interesting. Sinner hasn’t really shown himself to be a player that is easily disrupted, even when facing a player who serves really well, but that’s just how tough this matchup is for Draper. He did beat him in their only match so far, but it mostly came down to the serve, which Draper had firing on all cylinders. He’ll need that again, but even if he does, it won’t be that easy. As we noted, Sinner is a really good returner and will get many balls into the court.

So what to do? Well, Draper will need to remain stable from the baseline, which has happened so far at the event. He hasn’t faced a hitter like Sinner yet, so there will need to be some adjusting. While it’s not the best matchup for Draper, being here in the first place is a huge thing for him, which will only boost his career. Very few expect him to seriously challenge Sinner because the Italian has been that good, but it’s going to be a great experience regardless.

The Brit has huge potential, but he needed a signature run like this, both for the experience and to understand that it can be done. Sinner has had a similar journey in tennis. He didn’t break out immediately but slowly progressed until he finally got to this level.

It actually kind of worked in his favour because he was ready for the pressure that came with it. This matchup will surely be very interesting, and perhaps it yields a surprise. It’s unlikely from everything we’ve seen so far and how they match up. Still, when you have a Grand Slam final up for grabs, motivation should be huge.

The adrenaline will be flowing, and things could turn out to be different from what’s expected. What is surely true, though, is that Draper won’t fear the matchup. He looks very calm and supremely confident, which is what he’ll need. Sinner has been that way as well, but it comes from simply knowing that he’s better than everybody else. He’ll have to prove it in this match, but Draper is not as good as Medvedev, and Sinner didn’t have too many problems against the Russian.

We’ll see how this one goes and whether Sinner finally earns his first win over a player with whom he has a really solid relationship off the court.