John McEnroe said he was shocked at the \u201cphysical specimen\u201d Jack Draper had become having first met the British player when the latter was 14.<\/p>\n
Draper is having an excellent 2025 so far and having won Indian Wells, the 23-year-old is looking to become the first Briton since Andy Murray to win Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
As for his chances, three-time Wimbledon champion McEnroe believed Draper was definitely in contention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very impressed with Jack Draper<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d McEnroe said in his role as a commentator for the BBC. \u201cI knew that he had a lot of talent. I didn\u2019t realise he was that good an athlete. He\u2019s really developed into a force. He is seeded four, he\u2019s four in the world so to me, he\u2019s the fourth favourite, without a doubt.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think on this surface, he could play against anybody. Sinner\u2019s not quite as comfortable on this surface as he is on the other surfaces.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Alcaraz, it would certainly be exciting if those two played. So he\u2019s absolutely put himself in the mix which is going to add to the pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have to deal with those guys until the semis. That\u2019s all you can ask for. I think he\u2019s getting very close. I don\u2019t think that he\u2019s lacking anything in his game. There\u2019s nothing he can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n McEnroe went on to state the one aspect he was most surprised by with Draper\u2019s physicality vastly improving since the two first met.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was 14,\u201d McEnroe recalled of their first encounter.. \u201cHe was like 5ft 1. The guy was tiny, so he had to work on everything, as all 14-year-olds do.<\/p>\n \u201cHe obviously had a lot of talent, you could see that. But I wasn\u2019t quite sure why he was even there to be honest.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m still not 100% sure. I believe his dad was running the British LTA so it seemed like he was at least going to be taken care of, obviously.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that part seemed to be a non-issue. I\u2019m not sure how tall his mum is, or exactly how tall his dad is. I didn\u2019t see that happening where now it\u2019s: \u2018Oh, my God, Jesus Christ, this guy\u2019s a physical specimen\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Jack Draper gets a glowing Wimbledon endorsement by former world No 1<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic vs Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz to defend his crown? \u2013 our Wimbledon men\u2019s predictions<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n But to win the tournament, Draper was told he must have \u201ca little bit of luck\u201d but also overcome the \u201cnerves issue\u201d that has troubled him in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cIt comes down to belief at a certain point, a little bit of luck. and also the nerves issue that\u2019s been somewhat of an issue with him,\u201d McEnroe said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s talked about it. The expectations are going to be way higher than they\u2019ve ever been. So how is he going to handle that?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so that\u2019s going to be a factor coming in. I took a look at the forecast. Looked like it\u2019d be pretty warm, not super hot. So that could be fine. But at a certain point that could be a factor if it turns out to be really hot.\u201d<\/p>\n Read next:\u00a0Madison Keys embracing Wimbledon \u2018opportunity with US expectations set to rise<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post John McEnroe reveals \u2018oh my god\u2019 verdict on certain Jack Draper characteristic<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John McEnroe said he was shocked at the \u201cphysical specimen\u201d Jack Draper had become having first met the British player when the latter was 14. Draper is having an excellent 2025 so far and having won Indian Wells, the 23-year-old is looking to become the first Briton since Andy Murray to win Wimbledon. As for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Jack Draper news from Tennis365<\/h2>\n