JACK Draper, the son of former LTA chief executive Roger, was setting his sights on becoming the first British boy since 1962 to win a junior singles title at Wimbledon after a semi-final which was so long it was starting to give John Isner’s meeting with Kevin Anderson a run for its money, writes Stewart Fisher. Draper spurned nine match points, including one in the second set before he was able to close out a 7-6(5), 6-7 (6), 19-17 win against Nicolas Mejia of Colombia which at four hours 24 minutes was the longest junior match on record. Already the first British finalist in this competition since Liam Broady back in 2011, he would become the first winner of this trophy from these islands since Stanley Matthews Jnr, the son of the famous footballer, back in 1962, if he can overcome Chun Hsin Tseng of Chinese Taipei in Sunday’s final.
“I had one match point in the second set tiebreak,” said Draper. “Then obviously I had nine more. It was torture for me. But I was glad to get it done in the end.
“I don’t think anything can really prepare you for that sort of match as a junior player,” he added.”It’s the longest match I’ve had. But I was having loads of bananas, loads of electrolytes. That’s what kept me going. I was aware of the match that was going on. Kevin Anderson uses Dunlop as well as me. They kept changing the scoreboard from mine to his. It was like 20-20, stuff like that.”
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