Jack Draper snapped two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz’s 16-match win streak at the BNP Paribas Open on Saturday to power into his maiden ATP Masters 1000 final.
The 23-year-old Briton produced a gutsy response to dropping his first-career set to love to prevail 6-1, 0-6, 6-4. With his one-hour, 44-minute victory, Draper ensured that he will rise inside the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday.
“It was a strange match in all honesty,” said Draper, who is now 2-3 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Alcaraz. “Carlos came out a little flat, I sensed that. I had a chance in the first game of the second, and he came up with an ace.
“What happened to him happened to me, I got tight, I had low energy. Against the top players in the world, they can change their momentum very quickly. I got lost out there for 25 minutes, but in the third, I was really proud of my competitiveness, my attitude and I somehow managed to get over the line.”
Alcaraz was aiming to become the first player born in 1991 or later to win three consecutive singles titles at an ATP Tour event, but he was unable to ride his momentum into the final set. Draper reacted to the Spaniard’s shift to a deeper return position and limited his ability to attack from the baseline by leveraging his heavy topspin forehands on the slower courts.
Draper, who is up to No. 8 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, will face Holger Rune in the first final between two players born in the 2000s above ATP 500 level. Following runs to the fourth round at the Australian Open, and to the championship matches in Doha and Indian Wells, the Briton is 12-2 in 2025. Twelve months ago, Draper was World No. 43, but he has enjoyed a promising rise since, highlighted by tour-level titles in Stuttgart and Vienna, which came either side of his dazzling run to the US Open semi-finals last year.
Despite dropping 600 PIF ATP Rankings points, Alcaraz will remain as the World No. 3 on Monday.
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