Competing in his first Grand Slam quarter-final, Draper breezed through the first set 6-3. It was a confident showing from the 22-year-old, who fired down six aces and barely lost a point on his first serve.
But he raised eyebrows when he lunged over to stretch out his hamstring after taking the opener. Meanwhile, De Minaur was visibly wincing on the court. The Aussie pulled out ahead of his Wimbledon quarter-final with a hip injury earlier this summer and the US Open is his first appearance in a singles draw since his withdrawal.
During the third game of the second set, the physio could be seen waiting courtside. Sky Sports commentators were under the impression that he was there for De Minaur as the world No. 10 grabbed his hip and grimaced in pain during the game. But they were stunned when the trainer went straight over to the Brit, who broke to lead 2-1.
Draper got straight up and pulled one side of his shorts up so the trainer could get to work on his right thigh as he began strapping it up. Laura Robson, who was sitting courtside, thought there wasn’t too much cause for concern. ” The biggest sign is he didn’t go for the evaluation, he went straight to the tape,” she explained.
“He just wants a bit of support on the back of that leg and this is a very standard hamstring tape that I’m seeing in front of me so yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s too bad.” Robson also pointed out that Draper would have been aware of De Minaur’s own injury issues as she cracked a joke about the confusion around who called the physio.
“And for Jack as well, he would’ve seen – they played it on the big screen the replay of De Minaur pulling up short and feeling a bit of a wince on his leg. I don’t know what I was looking at then, you guys said the physio was coming on and I was a bit like, ‘But for who, Chris Kamara?’” she laughed.
“And then the physio walked straight past Alex, didn’t even make eye contact, and I thought, Oh, it’s not for who I thought. But as I said, the evaluation time was kept to a minimum, it was straight to the tape and all in the space of a change of ends so it’s job done.”
As Draper returned to the baseline to continue playing, Tim Henman added: “To see Draper sort of jog out like that, hopefully it’s just a little bit of a strain, a bit of soreness and that support won’t affect his performance.”
And Jonathan Overend turned the attention back to De Minaur’s hip problems. “It’s a bit of a distraction from what we consider sort of potentially being more serious discomfort being down the other end. The fact De Minaur doesn’t receive treatment clearly suggests that he doesn’t feel there’s anything anyone can do,” he speculated.
