Jack Draper recalls an accomplishment he thinks was harder to achieve than making the top five, ‘it was a lonely road’

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Jack Draper has had an incredible year so far, building upon his breakout season in 2024, where he took the tennis world by storm.

Draper won Indian Wells in March, defeating Holger Rune in the final to clinch his first Masters 1000 title.

The Briton then enjoyed an impressive campaign at the Madrid Open, tearing through his half of the draw without dropping a set before making the final, where Draper ultimately lost to Casper Ruud.

With his run in the Spanish capital, Draper surpassed Novak Djokovic in the ATP rankings, and is now fifth in the world – a career high.

Despite recently falling out of the Italian Open in the quarter-final, the 23-year-old’s new ranking shows excellent progress, but Draper believes cracking the top five hasn’t been the hardest accomplishment of his career so far.

Jack Draper says breaking the top 100 was harder than breaking the top five

When asked to pick the harder accomplishment between making the top 100 and making the top five, Draper told Sky Sports: “Breaking the top 100 for sure.”

“It took many highs and lows to get to that point. People think it’s all glitz and glamour, when actually coming up through the ranks in the futures and the challengers, there are thousands of players who are hungry to be in this position inside the world’s top 100.”

“You have to go to some not amazing places and compete in front of no people and stay in the same place for a long time and mentally that’s very challenging.”

“Of course it has a lot of ups to it as well, the winning and that sort of stuff, but it’s a very lonely road to get to that point, so I’d definitely say breaking the top 100 was something that I’ll look back on and think, that’s one of the hardest things I’ve done.”

Jack Draper says what he would tell his 18-year-old self

On what he would tell his teenage self, Draper said: “Just keep going, not expecting everything to be perfect all the time.”

“There’s gonna be highs and there’s gonna be lows. There’s gonna be a lot of struggle and a lot of sacrifices.”

“There’s gonna be a lot of things you’ll have to learn and go through, but the most important thing is to have good people around you.”

“Create the environment and create the reality that you want to live, and that’s what I feel I’ve done, especially in the last two or three years.”

He added: “It’s something I wish I had done a bit sooner – just taking more responsibility over my own life, because that usually ends up in results and great things.”