Jack Draper admitted his “relief” to get back to action at the US Open after the “storm” surrounding his last victory at the Cincinnati Masters.
The British No.1 had revealed he had spent “four days non-stop” thinking about the controversial match point against Felix Auger Aliassime where he unwittingly hit the ball twice.
And he was abused on social media by fans and fellow players.
And so maybe the tennis fods looked down kindly on Court 5 on Tuesday when his dangerous opponent Zhizhen Zhang – known as Triple-Z – retired with a knee injury suffered in training last week after losing the last 11 games.
“He was clearly injured and over time, his injury seemed to get worse,” said Draper.
The quick win came after five-set marathons in his opening rounds of the three other Grand Slams this season – and he went on to lose in the second round both times he won.
And there was a more low-key ending to this match when the Chinese No.1 quit after 65 minutes with the score at 6-3 6-0 4-0.
Draper spent nearly as much time signing autographs and posing for selfies afterwards as reaching the second round.
“After the other Grand Slams, it’s kind of a nice feeling to maybe to have one that was a little bit easier, and hopefully can settle me in,” he said.
“Obviously it was a bit of a storm last week, definitely when I played three tough matches there, and then obviously the next match I lost against Holger Rune, I wasn’t all there.
“I was not only physically tired, but a bit mentally sort of bamboozled by the night before. It definitely took a few days to physically recover from that weekend, mentally and emotionally and all those sort of things.
“And in the last couple of days, I feel like I’ve sort of freshened up and my mindsets on competing here, and I think today, I know he got injured, but I was ready to play my best tennis out there.
“And, I felt really, really good about myself. So is there a bit of relief that you feel that. I feel good the last couple of days just getting rid of tthose feelings and sort of moving on.”
