Britain No.1 Jack Draper said he doesn’t want to be normal but he wants to be right there at the top. Draper said he wasn’t happy with a quarterfinal finish after the loss against Carlos Alcaraz. The leftie suffered a 4-6, 4-6 loss against the Spaniard on Wednesday.
Draper recently made it to the Madrid Open but fell to Casper Ruud in the summit clash. The Brit has been performing consistently on the tour and has risen to No. 5 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
“I obviously lost to a great player today. I’m very disappointed with the way I performed, in a way,” said Draper, who trails Alcaraz 2-4 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series. “I think from a mental and emotional point of view, you could say that’s normal, you had a tough four weeks now.
“I don’t want to be normal. I want to be right up there. It hurts a lot, this kind of loss. But Carlos played a really good match and he was the better player. I have to accept that, go back to the drawing board and really prepare well for the French Open, [knowing] that I’m hopefully going to have many more chances against these great players.”
The Briton has been consistently playing on the tour in the last month and feels fatigue might have proved to be a barrier for him against a quality player like Alcaraz.
“I’ve been playing the last four weeks now pretty much,” Draper said when asked whether fatigue played a part in his 4-6, 4-6 loss. “I don’t want to think about it or admit it, but it probably has a big effect I think on not just today but throughout the week.
“I’ve been struggling a little bit, like I said, to maintain my quality all throughout the matches. Today against someone like that, you can’t have those dips in your standards because you get punished. At the end of the day that’s not why I lost today. I lost to a better player.”
Draper would look to bring his best in the upcoming Roland Garros, which is all set to begin from May 25.
