Jack Draper enters the Wimbledon meat grinder as Britain’s Big Thing

As Jack Draper arched his back to serve, a set and a break up on Court No 1, a well-groomed man in thick silver sunglasses stood up in his seat and posed for a photo in front of the action, chewing theatrically on the handle of his lustrously finished handbag, thereby conveying to his social media feed that he was (a) present, vital, right here in the moment; and (b) not very interested in tennis.

Nobody seemed to mind. In fairness Wimbledon’s big Tuesday best-of-British event did feel a bit like this. Less an act of white-hot sporting drama, more just, like, a really cool thing happening.

An hour and 13 minutes into this first-round match Sebastián Báez would retire with a knee injury at 6-2, 6-2, 2-1 down. There will be far tougher opponents than the world No 38 who barely left an imprint on the Wimbledon turf, and whose only obvious victory plan was to keep bunting the ball back until one of you dies of heat exhaustion. There was no chance of that on the Wimbledon grass. Instead this was the tennis equivalent of watching a man being run over by a truck, albeit a very elegant, high-end, luxury-spec truck.

And so Draper has now progressed to the second round, and also taken a step along another significant pathway. For Draper this Wimbledon is a kind of coming out event, a society debut. Not in any sport-related sense. He’s No 4 in the world. He has already vaulted through every level placed in front of him, from the nepo-baby jibes of the junior tennis circuit, a place that makes even the drowned world of kids cricket seem insufficiently neurotic, to proving himself as a genuine elite presence on tour.

But this is also Draper’s first post-Murray summer, his first as the Big Thing, the key domestic TV event at this arena of swoons, flushes and also hunger. It would emerge later that the handbag-biting man was in fact part of a team of influencers sent by Draper’s fashion sponsor to create their own sub-spectacle, amplify the brand, influence.

View image in fullscreen Jack Draper cools off on Court No 1. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

The All England Club can hardly complain. Wimbledon and Draper is also essentially a brand partnership. British star power has been vital to this place’s transformation into a hugely potent financial engine, spawned out of the appearance of sporting mania as a feature in public life in the mid-90s. Wimbledon entwined itself around this, the corporate hospitality dollar, the pink trouser pound. The industry is real. It needs meat. So Draper must head into the grinder, a deeply mannered kind of grinder, but a grinder nonetheless.

Court No 1 was viciously hot and humid in late afternoon, the kind of heat that sits on every surface like heavy gravity. There was a slow wave of whoops and whistles as the players walked out, Draper picturesquely vast next to Báez. There are still questions to be answered here. What are the shapes, the sounds, the iconography of the Draper fandom?

Henman Energy was fevered and oddly sexless, with a vague sense of cheering for a minor royal cousin. The Murray years were more nuanced, a deeper bond, a higher ceiling, a sense of greatness to be touched. Draper is something else, a product off the high-end factory line, a machine made to hit and stretch and win.

You can see why elite players consider him elite. There are no weaknesses in his physical toolbox. Tall but good feet. Power but still whippy and light in his shoulders. And yes we will objectify him, because this is tennis, a relentless elite sport, but also basically a country-house flirtation that got out of hand. The jaw, the shoulders, the sculpted lines. This thing is rangy, classical, elite-athlete handsome. We have one of these now. How is it going to feel?

“Come on Drapes” lone voices shouted in the crowd, trying it out, as he hit long in the opening game, searching for timing in that full-rotation forehand. But with 20 minutes gone it was already 5-1. The second set was if anything even easier. And outside on the big-screen slope beyond Court No 1 the vibe was equally comfortable.

View image in fullscreen Draper’s first-round match was scheduled for primetime TV in the UK. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

There are issues to be settled here. What will we call this space now, given it seems to need to be called something? Henman Hill always sounded like a bottle of bad English wine. Does it have to be a hill? Jackatoa? The Jackerhorn? Jackstock? Is there a Jackstonbury angle?

All of this fluff has a hard commercial edge. Sport must be sold to people who don’t like sport. Eyeballs must be harvested. But it is a shame, because Draper is interesting in his own right. He has taken time to find his best self, struggled with nerves, and spoken recently about the influence of his breathing coach, which is very Big Sport kind of thing, a place where often the real interest is the challenge of simply surviving in this world, existing on that lighted stage.

Draper has spent a lot of time working out how to be alone, waiting better, being in hotels better, remembering to breathe, learning to win, as here, without taking a bite out of himself. On this evidence it might just be an unusually comfortable reboot.

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