Jack Draper has been broiling with frustration over his form all week and in the semi-finals he finally bubbled over, destroying an advertising board with a furious hack of his racket.
Draper had survived two three-set matches at the Queen’s Club’s HSBC Championships but not a third, going down 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to Czech Jiri Lehecka.
The British No 1’s ability is such that he can make a semi-final without playing his best tennis and that has certainly been the case here. As he failed to break from 0-40 early in the second set he blasted a loose ball into the stands – ridiculously receiving no ball abuse warning from umpire Adel Nour. He punctuated that with a yell of ‘f*** off’ – whether to himself, his coaching box or just the world in general, it is difficult to divine.
After a missed first serve in the next game Draper sarcastically said: ‘Yep, yep, yep’ – he was absolutely fuming.
His serve was excellent for most of the match – it has kept him in the draw this week – but dipped at the end as Lehecka seemed to get a read on it. Serving at 5-5, Draper was given a warning for slow play and then when the break was conceded he lost it, attacking the advertising board with an uncharacteristically violent display of temper. Ironically, the board at the time was displaying Dunlop, the make of the racket with which Draper destroyed it.
This always looked a hazardous match against Lehecka, one Draper could easily have lost. The world No 30 is a pure ball-striker with a venomous serve – very similar in style to his countryman Tomas Berdych, who retired in 2019. Berdych’s best run at a major came at Wimbledon in 2010 – he lost in the final to Rafael Nadal – and grass should be a productive surface for Lehecka, too, as his career develops.
Jack Draper’s bid for Queen’s glory ended on Saturday when he was beaten in the semi-finals
Draper lost to World No 30 Jiri Lehecka of Czechia 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 in two hours and eight minutes
Towards the end of the match, an angry Draper swung his racket into an advertising board
He had not dropped a set this week coming in, thrashing No5 seed Alex de Minaur in the first round and taking out British No2 Jacob Fearnley in the quarters.
Draper, meanwhile, was run awfully close in his previous two matches by Alexei Popyrin and Brandon Nakashima.
He made a terrible start here, two errors and a double fault conceding an early break – not ideal against a man who can reach 140mph on serve.
Draper’s first real opening on the Lehecka serve came at 4-3, 15-30 and the response was a brace of aces to the tune of 137 and 139mph. Serving at 5-4 Lehecka again sent down consecutive aces, completing a near-perfect opening set.
So far this week Draper has always played just well enough to come through without ever finding fluency on the grass, after two months on clay. Lehecka played the previous week on the lawns of Stuttgart and it was noticeable how much lower his centre of gravity was than Draper’s, as he skated along the baseline with knees bent low.
In the first set Draper was standing back and trying to swing through the returns – as he was on the clay – but as the match went on he switched tack and began blocking or chipping the return, taking the pace off Lehecka’s serve.
This allowed him to gain a foothold in the match and he had 0-40 on the Lehecka serve early in the second set. But the game got away from him and after one missed return he blasted the loose ball into the stands – ridiculously receiving no ball abuse warning from umpire Adel Nour.
Part of the advertising board changed colour — from red to black — after Draper smashed it
Lehecka has now beaten Draper, Jacob Fearnley, Gabriel Diallo and Alex de Minaur this week
A brilliant performance on Saturday saw Lehecka hit 36 winners and just 18 unforced errors
After a missed first serve in the next game Draper sarcastically said: ‘Yep, yep, yep’ – he was absolutely fuming, but he was also playing his best tennis of the week. When Lechecka served at 4-5 Draper went to the block return and just stuck four balls back in the court.
On set point he nudged a backhand pass on to the back half of the baseline. The crowd did not know whether it was in or out – a Draper fist raised to the baking skies was their answer.
They flew through service games in the deciding set until, at 4-4, he saved his first break point since the fifth game of the second set, chiselling out a hold despite only making a couple of first serves.
Trouble again at 5-5, and this time Draper’s resilience – and his patience – ran out.
