Which of the four men in the semifinals who has blasted his way through the draw, yet to lose a single set? No. 1 Jannik Sinner? Nope. Maybe, Taylor Fritz—surely, he’s been on quite a roll. No. Alright, then, Frances Tiafoe, riding the night wave in Arthur Ashe Stadium? Not him either.
The man who is 15-0 in sets at the 2024 US Open: Jack Draper.
That’s right, the 22-year-old Brit, who had never been past the fourth round of a Slam before now.
The last player at the US Open to win at least 14 sets without a setback? Also a Brit, and a virtual unknown at the time: Emma Raducanu. She, of course, won the title—without surrendering a set.
“Even though I have won most—well, all of them in three sets,” Draper said, quickly correcting himself, “I still feel like I have got so much left in my locker, like, I'm not worrying about if it goes longer, if it goes for a long time. It gives me a lot of peace of mind knowing that my body feels good or robust, and I'm ready to go the distance if I need to."
Draper hasn’t yet needed to go the distance.He has won 89 games and lost just 36—that's a 71% win rate. He hasn’t even been extended to a tiebreak in any of those sets. That’s pretty incredible in just his third US Open.
Draper has certainly benefitted from being in the section of the draw that was blown up by Botic van De Zandschulp’s shocking upset of 2022 US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz in second round. The 25th-ranked Brit saw his opportunity, though, and he went for it. By the quarterfinals, he and Australia’s Alex de Minaur (No. 10) were the last seeded men standing in their section.
Draper hasn’t just been climbing the ladder recently, he seems to be leapfrogging entire rungs. He played his second-round match against No. 74 van de Zandschulp on Grandstand. Then he played and beat the 39th-ranked Czech Tomas Machac on Louis Armstrong. On Wednesday, Draper played in Arthur Ashe Stadium for the first time and he raced past de Minaur.
Can Draper’s upward trajectory stay on course? Next up, he returns to the sport’s biggest stage to face Sinner. The Italian is looking to bookend his year that started with a championship at the Australian Open and finish it with one in New York.
The last British man to reach the semifinals at the US Open was Andy Murray in 2012. Draper—who captured his first ATP title earlier this year—is the new British No. 1, displacing Cameron Norrie. Draper’s ascension is welcome news for British tennis fans, given that Sir Andy retired just weeks ago, signing off on a legendary career.
“To follow in Andy's footsteps,” Draper said, “it's a big achievement for me. “
Against de Minaur, Draper seized the decisive break of serve in the third and final set by blasting a Nadal-esque inside-in forehand. The Brit skipped way around his backhand into the doubles alley and confidently pummeled the ball down the line for a winner and a 3-2 advantage that the Aussie couldn’t recover from.
Draper didn’t stop there. Serving for the match, he leaped to retrieve two de Minaur smashes, throwing up high lobs each time and then stepping in to crunch a forehand winner, his biggest of the afternoon, to get to 40-love. The Brit strode into the semis on a swatted backhand winner the next point.
The 6-foot-4 Draper has said that the “medium-fast” courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center suit him and his game. “They are fast enough for my power game, and grippy enough for some variety, spins, and angles,” he said. And they really take to his big, nasty, sliding lefty serves.
Draper has brought an almost Zen-like attitude to the Open. “I haven't really thought of anything [while on court]”, he said. “I don't think much is kind of going through my mind. It's a little bit weird. I'm just trying to focus on what's important, what I've got to keep doing.”
The Brit credits a new attitude, as well as a healthy body, for his success. “One of the things this year that has helped me to sort of be better is I'm mentally a lot better.”
“This is not kind of like an overnight thing for me,” Draper asserted after his quarterfinal win. “I've believed for a long time that I've been putting in the work and doing the right things, and I knew that my time would come. I didn't know when it would be, but hopefully from here, I can do a lot of amazing things. I'm very proud of myself.”
“At the end of the day, I'm not afraid of being in these positions.”
Draper will take that newfound self-belief—which he will need every ounce of—into his semifinal encounter with Sinner.
It’s the next rung on the ladder.
