Jack Draper secured his first victory at the Intesa Sanpaola Next Gen ATP Finals. The Brit came into the event as the an alternate after Holger Rune withdrew, but lost his first round robin match on Tuesday in straight sets to Dominic Sticker. The Brit has reached #41 in the world, and is the future of British Tennis.
The format of the Next Gen finals is best of five sets, like the Grand Slams. However, they play first to four games per set, with a tiebreak at 3 all. This speeds up a five set match to generally under three hours. Draper lost in straight sets to the Swiss player who is the seventh seed. However, the Brit faced Taiwanese player Tseng Chun-Hsin on Wednesday.
Previous Winners
In the five years that the tournament has been held, there have been four different winners. Hyeon Chung won the first one held in 2017, the South Korean went on to make the Australian Open semifinal the following season but has not had much success on the main tour since then after battling injuries.
Stefanos Tsitsipas was the winner of the second Next Gen finals. The Greek has since consistently made the semifinals of the Australian Open, except for in 2020. Tsitsipas made the final of the French Open in 2021 before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic.
Jannik Sinner claimed the title in 2019. The Italian needed until this season before hitting the best results in Grand Slams. Sinner made the quarterfinal of each Slam of this season, with the exception of the French Open where the Italian retired in the fourth round due to a knee injury.
The Corona Virus pandemic meant that the Next Gen finals were not held in 2020. In 2021 the winner was Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. The 19-year-old had a breakthrough season to land in the top eight of the Next Gen, and has since moved onto even bigger things. The Spaniard won the 2022 US Open and became the youngest world #1 in the ATP history.
Bright Future
Whoever claims the 2022 Next Gen Finals this season will hope to replicate the success of most of the past winners. Draper lost the first set of his second round robin match 1-4. However, the Brit then managed to refocus and won the next three sets. Only one of these went to a tiebreak, and the Brit stormed through the breaker anyway.
If Draper can win the event, it would be a huge deal for British Tennis. The last Slam champion the Brits have is Andy Murray who has won three of them (two at Wimbledon, we Brits like that!) and also holds two Olympic Singles Gold Medals, and a Silver in mixed doubles.
Cameron Norrie has come closest for the Brits to being their next Slam champion, making the semifinal at Wimbledon, before losing in four sets to Djokovic. Having more Brits in the top echelons of the sport will give us much more opportunities. Draper at 20 years old looks to be heading in the right direction and is a bright star coming through to push Norrie and Dan Evans.
Main Photo from Getty.
