Britain’s Jack Draper was taken the distance but defeated America’s Maros Giron 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 and reached the quarter finals in Stuttgart where he faces another American in Frances Tiafoe on Friday.
Draper, who is still only 22-years-old, hit 36 winners along with nine aces as he won a massive 84% of points behind his first serve to finally come through in almost two hours.
“I thought I played a really good first set, but then he came back really strong. I had a blip in concentration, but then in the third set I came back so I’m really happy I was able to come through the match” said Draper on court after his victory.
In the day’s last match on Centre court, the first four games went with serve until Giron played a horrible game starting with three unforced errors to go 0-40 down. Two points later, a brilliant forehand up the line from sixth seed Draper pulled Giron out of position and he committed yet another error to hand the break to the Brit. Games thereafter went with serve and Draper, who peaked at 35 in the rankings just two months ago, closed out in 32 minutes.
But 30-year-old Giron, who is ranked just outside the top 50, upped his game in the second set and broke serve for a 5-3 lead to take the match into a decider. In the third, left-handed Draper used his massive swinging serve to full effect and broke serve immediately to go 3-0 up and even had a chance for a double break. Instead Giron, who beat Holger Rune in the second round of the Toronto Masters last year, held and put Draper under pressure for the remainder of the match.
Draper paid tribute to his beaten opponent: “he beat Andy Murray yesterday who is an incredible player, so I knew he had a high level. I had to come out and know he was going to bring that and I was able to stay with him and in the end come through. It’s not fun at all, it’s not easy. But, yeah, you just have to stay with him, I was trying to stay focussed and try to stay positive, because especially on these courts it can happen very quick, so I’m happy I was able to perform here.”
Draper knows how to play on grass, having reached the Wimbledon junior final in 2018. He mixed up heavy hitting from the back along with intelligent net approaches and closed out the contest with a sliced crosscourt backhand volley, before clenching his fist and waving to the crowd.
Looking ahead to the Tiafoe game, Draper said: “He is an incredible player, I think everyone in the draw is incredible, so I really look forward to that challenge and it will be a really fun match.”
The first match of the day saw Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti take on home hope Dominik Koepfer who won their only previous meeting and was searching for his first quarter final on grass. In a match approaching three hours, Musetti finally came through 6-7, 7-6, 6-3.
Both players held serve well in the opening exchanges and won a combined 22 points at the net. Musetti, who had a 6-3 win/loss record on grass last year, was untroubled on his service games and held four breakpoints but was unable to convert any. He raced to a 4-1 lead in the tie-break but threw in a sloppy double fault to lose his advantage and the scores were level at 5-5. Thereafter, both players held and saved set points and 65th ranked Koepfer (having saved five) finally won on his third set point after an hour and nine minutes, when former junior World number one Musetti played a very conservative rally and nervously hooked a forehand wide.
But 22-year-old Musetti, who broke into the top 20 after earning a personal-best 34 wins during 2022 season regrouped and fought back in the second – also on a tie-breaker – seven points to five to level the contest. After trading breaks at the start of the third, he took the decisive break to go 5-3 ahead and soon served out to reach the quarter finals here for the second year in a row.
“It was a really, really tough match,” Musetti said. “We saw two hours and a half of really good tennis. Dominik was playing really, really well… We were fighting until the end and I am really proud of myself.”
The second match on Centre court saw American Frances Tiafoe save eleven breakpoints before beating Yannick Hanfmann 7-5, 7-6. The German has multiple victories on the Challenger circuit and has wins over Fritz, Gael Monfils and Andrey Rublev on the main ATP Tour, while he earned the biggest win of his career over Stefanos Tsitsipas on the grass in Mallorca last summer.
In the first meeting between the two players, both held serve until five games all in the first set before defending champion Tiafoe made his move to break. Both players continued serving well and tested each other out in the second set: Tiafoe forcing deuce a couple of times and Hanfmann reaching 0-30 in a service game before Tiafoe averted the trouble with great serving.
The game point at two games all featured the rally of the day, proving tennis is not all about power and booming serves. The lovely exchange involved a series of angled drop shots before Hanfmann, who achieved his career-high ranking of 45 last July, ended up on the other side of the net. Both players then acknowledged their efforts and shared a fist pump.
Tiafoe, a former World number two in juniors, cracked the top 10 exactly a year ago after winning here for his third ATP Tour title – saving a match point against Jan-Lennard Struff in the final – meaning there were two Americans in the top 10 (along with Taylor Fritz) for the first time in over ten years.
In the only other singles match today, Alexander Bublik went through in straight sets, beating youngster Hamad Medjedovic, who became the third Serbian teenager to win a hattrick of Challenger titles last year. Bublik, who posted a personal best of 35 wins in 2021, is adept on the grass courts having won last year in Halle with a victory over Andrey Rublev, and he cruised through the first set with a double break over his nervous opponent taking it 6-1.
Medjedovic is a relative newcomer to the main ATP Tour and has faced only one top 20 player in his fledging career, losing to Daniil Medvedev in Rome last month. He put up a more solid display in the second set taking it to a tie-break, but a couple of loose errors at the wrong time was his downfall as he lost it 7-6.
Bublik, who made the last 16 at Wimbledon last year spoke briefly on court after his match: “It’s true I’m happy to be back on grass. I had one of the best memories I had last year in Halle and coming back to Germany here in this beautiful venue on the beautiful grass gives be goosebumps. Hamad is very young and nervous, maybe he gifted me a couple of points in the first set and I used my experience. In the second set the serve percentage was much higher and I’m lucky I got a few balls back in the court in the tie-break.”
