ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL

January 13, 2023

Jack Draper

Press Conference

Q. You had some big wins this week but just fell short today.

JACK DRAPER: Yeah, so overall pretty solid week. Obviously gutted to lose today. I really wanted to go all the way this tournament, but he played a good match in all fairness to him. I've got to try and keep my head up and take positives away from this week because there have been some.

Q. On that point, what do you take away from here?

JACK DRAPER: Yeah, just more experiences. To play first time in Australia pro, beating some top-50 players again this week, I beat Khachanov who I lost to the first week, so again, an improvement on the last, so I've just got to keep building and think to myself, as well, that again, I've only been on the tour for six months. It's easy to forget that, and people think I should be winning this, should be winning that. I put that expectation on myself, as well, but at the same time I know that I have to keep on learning and keep on growing at this level.

Q. Looking at the stats in the match, Kwon saved nine of ten break points. Was that kind of the key in the match?

JACK DRAPER: Yeah, I don't seem to remember on the break points feeling like I did too much wrong. I'm sure if I looked at them back, maybe there was a couple of points I could have been a bit more offensive, but I felt like he came up with a good zone on most of them, so fair play to him.

Q. Did you feel you were losing a step, especially in the third set, that maybe the heat was starting to take effect?

JACK DRAPER: Maybe a little bit. It's been a tough few weeks. Before I always felt like I was playing catch-up. I was quite ill, and then coming into these two weeks I trained really hard, sort of did my preseason these two weeks to try and get in shape as good as possible for Australian Open. That takes its toll a little bit.

My body is improving all the time. I've gotten a new fitness coach, Dejan Vojnovic, who's incredible, but we've only been working together for four weeks, so I can't expect to be physically in unbelievable shape just yet. I've got to keep on working on that.

Q. Now the big one is just a couple of days away. You've seen the schedule for day one?

JACK DRAPER: Yeah, I believe I'm --

Q. Third match on Rod Laver Arena.

JACK DRAPER: Third match on Rod Laver. Yeah, it's going to be a good match for me to play. Right now I'm sort of still licking my wounds off this last loss, but now my focus goes to obviously Melbourne, getting there, and obviously preparing the best I can for that match against Rafa.

Q. So often what you might see in the sport is when somebody is still maybe new or not used to having a run of good results and then you do and then the next week there's a bit of a let-down. How can you try and avoid that for when you come up against Rafa on Rod Laver Arena? That's another experience that you're going to have.

JACK DRAPER: What, as in I've had a good week this week and then backing it up again?

Q. Yeah.

JACK DRAPER: Look, I think Rafa is the No. 1 seed for a reason. He's obviously an incredible player. He's one of the greats. I've just got to try and block all that out and just try and go and compete my hardest in order to do my best to win the match.