It was always going to take something special to beat Jack Draper in this form – and they don’t come much more special than Alexander Bublik.
The Kazakhstani produced a jaw-dropping, eye-popping display of shotmaking, surging from a set and a break down to win 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
‘You know, sometimes in life there’s only one chance, I had a feeling this was mine and I couldn’t let it slip,’ said Bublik, who at the age of 27 and a ranking of No62 has reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time. ‘It’s the best moment of my life, I’m standing here like I won the tournament!’
His serve was heavy as sledgehammer, his volleys soft as gossamer. Draper could just about deal with those two weapons but the drop shots utterly broke him.
Bublik hit 37, and as Draper tried to retrieve them it was as if he moved through quicksand rather than clay.
His French Open challenge is over and, with that, Britain’s challenge in the singles, after Cam Norrie’s earlier straight-sets defeat by Novak Djokovic.
Jack Draper crashed out of the French Open in the fourth round as he lost to Alexander Bublik
Bublik, the world No 62, is the first player from Kazakhstan to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final
Draper ultimately had no answer for Bublik and exited via a 7-5 3-6 2-6 4-6 four-set defeat
Draper will be wretchedly disappointed. Bublik had described him as having the body of a UFC fighter, and by the end of this match that felt less like a complement than it was intended to be.
While Bublik was lithe and loose, Draper looked sluggish, weighed down by muscle.
Yes, Bublik was unplayable at times but Draper could have done more. His forehand radar was off. He could have made a more determined effort to stay closer to the baseline, in order not to be quite so vulnerable to the drop shot.
The pattern of the match was remarkably similar to Bublik’s defeat of No9 seed Alex de Minaur in the second round. The Aussie took the first two sets, then Bublik put on a 90-minute showreel, leaving his usually implacable opponent struggling to muster the energy for the fight.
It is a mark of Draper’s incredible consistency that this was his worst defeat by ranking since last year, when he went out in the first round to then-world No176 Jesper de Jong.
Before this match, Bublik outlined his manifesto, for life and tennis. Something of an eastern-European Nick Kyrgios, Bublik is portrayed as an outsider, a freak of the tennis world.
‘I am very normal, but they make me feel different,’ said Bublik, and he has a point. He enjoys popping out for dinner and a drink, sometimes he is tired and does not give 100 per cent effort in practice; he has a good work-life balance in other words. He is unwilling to give the totality of body and soul to his craft.
In a brutal, 12-months-a-year sport like tennis, 99 per cent of those who give less than full dedication are left by the wayside. Kyrgios and Bublik are those whose outrageous talent puts them in the remaining one per cent.
Draper struggled to deal with the barrage of drop shots from Bublik and wasn’t at his best
Bublik, somewhat of a maverick and outsider in tennis, put in a simply sensational display
The Kazakhstani collapsed to the turf at the end and coined it as ‘the best moment of my life’
Explaining his sometimes peculiar shot selection – Bublik loves an underarm serve – he explained it was his only option: he cannot fight physical monsters like Draper on their own terms so he has to slice and dice, mix things up and abbreviate the points.
He did so masterfully against Draper. The first set was extremely tight, a very un-clay-like exchange dominated by serve. In an drawn-out game at 5-5, Draper carved out the only break point of the set and Bublik obliged with a double fault.
When Draper broke in the first game of the second set, he should by tennis logic have been in control. But there is no control where Bublik is concerned; only anarchy.
Bublik broke back to love and then the symphony began. It felt symbolic that, just as Bublik took the second set with a phenomenal angled volley, the Lenglen floodlights flicked on: showtime.
The match began to run away from Draper like clay granules through an hourglass.
At 3-1 down in the third set Draper took an angry swipe at the clay. The locals did not like that one bit and responded with boos.
The drop-shot fusillade continued. Towards the end of the match Draper tried one of his own, and it was so ham-fisted the crowd actually laughed at him in the middle of the point – it’s a cliché but Parisians really are bloody rude.
The final game of the match was sensational, one of the best of the tournament. On the second point, Bublik hit drop, Draper picked it up, Bublik as he so often did he retrieved it into open court. Draper sprinted back for his life and from way behind him, flicked a forehand down at Bublik’s feet. He gestured to the crowd to raise the noise level. On the next point Bublik ballooned a forehand and Draper bellowed a ‘C’mon’.
He earned two break points at 15-40, and had two very decent looks at forehands, but sent them both long. That shot has been brilliant this year but not today. Three more break points came and went, along with one match point, but Bublik was not to be denied and he collapsed on to the clay.
