Draper clicks into gear and dispatches Tseng at Next Gen ATP Finals

After a rough ride against an in-form Dominic Stricker on Tuesday (a 4-3(5), 4-3(5), 4-3(5) loss), Jack Draper wasn’t exactly in the best mood last night, as he went to sleep in Turin after losing his first match of the 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals.

He woke up in the mood to change the tone, and did so nicely.

“I thought Stricker played an amazing match yesterday, so all credit to him, I maybe wasn’t at my best, but I thought he played an exceptionally good match,” Draper said on Wednesday, after rallying for a 1-4, 4-2, 4-3(2), 4-2 win over Tseng Chun-Hsin.

“It was tough to go to sleep last night knowing that I played okay and still lost. Today, I knew it’d be a really tough match and I came out a bit slow but I had a good talking to myself and tried to really find a way and I was able to do that today.”

Draper – you have to be sharp in this format

The 20-year-old Brit, ranked 41, says he took a hard look in the mirror after dropping the opening set to the world No 90, and told himself that he needed to step up his game in a hurry.

I just tried to back myself and believe in myself and my abilities and what I’ve been doing all throughout this year, and I’m happy with the way I closed it out.

— Jack Draper

“It’s a quick format and you need to be sharp when I sat down and change events after the first I had a real go at myself,” Draper told Jill Craybas on court after his triumph. “I said, ‘You have got to be sharper, got to be more switched on and you have to be more alert out here because it can go very quickly if you’re not quite alert,’ so glad with the way I mentally turned things around.”

Both Draper (+218) and Tseng (+161) have made significant strides in the ATP rankings this year, but it was Draper who took a bit of revenge for a loss to Tseng in the 2018 Wimbledon boys singles final. Tseng drops to 0-2 on the week in Milan; Draper improves to 1-1.

“I just tried to back myself and believe in myself and my abilities and what I’ve been doing all throughout this year, and I’m happy with the way I closed it out,” Draper, who will face Lorenzo Musetti in his final round-robin match, said.

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