Jack Draper has more expectation on him ahead of this year’s French Open.
Draper is currently world number five, a career-high ranking that he has been rewarded with after winning Indian Wells and reaching the Madrid Open final.
Despite not winning a match at the French Open before, Draper appears to have high expectations of himself to make a deep run in Paris.
This mindset is something that former British number one Laura Robson appears to have noticed when watching Draper practice ahead of the second Grand Slam tournament of the season.
Laura Robson explains what she has noticed about Jack Draper ahead of the French Open
Draper has lost his two previous first round matches at the French Open, but will be one of the top seeds at this year’s tournament.
When speaking about the 23-year-old in her Sky Sports column, the aforementioned Robson explained that she thinks Draper looks more assured in the biggest moments than he used to.
While Robson suggested that Draper could reach the second week of the French Open for the first time, she does think that his lack of best-of-five set experience on the surface could be a hurdle.
“For me, from the side of the court, he’s not getting as stressed in these long matches or tight moments because he can trust in himself a bit more,” said Robson. “It starts with the amount of work that you do on the practice court and the fact that you don’t think you’re going to break down anymore.
“I feel any result that gets him to the second week would be a bonus for Jack, considering where he was this time last year, and the expectations have, of course, totally changed ahead of the Grand Slam, but he still doesn’t have a lot of best-of-five clay experience.”
What happened the last time that Jack Draper played Mattia Bellucci?
On paper Draper has been handed a fortuitous draw, playing against world number 68 Mattia Bellucci.
It will not be the first time that Draper has played Bellucci, having beaten the Italian in straight sets on the hard courts of Tokyo last year.
Bellucci has beaten a top 10 player in Daniil Medvedev already this year, but is currently on a five-match losing streak.
Draper will kick off his French Open campaign against Bellucci on Tuesday May 27, as they both look for their first win at the Parisian major.
The winner of that match will play either former top 10 player Gael Monfils or Bolivian Hugo Dellien.
