Jack Draper has reached his first ATP Masters 1000 final after beating Carlos Alcaraz in the Indian Wells semi-finals.
Draper beat a nervy Alcaraz, 6-1 0-6 6-4, to move into the biggest final of his career in the Californian desert.
This was the first time that the Spaniard had been beaten at the tournament since 2022, with Alcaraz already making Indian Wells history this year.
Despite Alcaraz being full of praise for Draper, there was a controversial moment in the third set that both players have since been questioned about.
Jack Draper shares Carlos Alcaraz conversation after video review incident
In the early stages of the third and deciding set at 1-1 15-15, Alcaraz and Draper were embroiled in a rally that resulted in a contentious call by chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani.
With Draper lunging to reach an Alcaraz drop shot, Lahyani adjudged the ball to have bounced twice before he hit it back over.
However, British number one Draper contested this call and requested the video review system that is in use at Indian Wells this year.
VAR technology has split opinion on both the ATP and WTA Tours, but in this case showed that Draper did in-fact get his racket under the ball before it bounced twice.
Lahyani then called for the point to be replayed as he claimed that he had made the initial call before Alcaraz hit the ball out, which would be ruled as hindrance.
Draper suggested that this was not the case, and video review was called again with the Brit subsequently being awarded the point.
This decision resulted in an exchange between Draper and Alcaraz at the net, with the former explaining what was said in his post-match press conference.
“Yeah, obviously I felt like, you know, obviously we do have the review here, and that’s a really good thing,” said Draper. “It was a tough situation, because obviously felt like I got the ball up, and then also, I know that Carlos had only just got to it and he missed it wide.
“So I asked Mohamed to look at the video review and was it clear that I got it up? But then it was the fact that I don’t think Carlos really had a good play on the ball and he missed it.
“So I asked him to review that, to see what he thought of that, and then the only other thing after that was, I asked Carlos at the net whether he felt like Mohamed, when he interrupted, whenever that was during the point, affected Carlos’ shot, because he missed it, but he might have missed it because someone might have said Mohamed might have called it and that put him off.
“But he said it didn’t, so I think the call was right. Yeah, like, I think it’s really good for tennis that we’ve got the video reviews.
“Obviously I went through it at the end of last year with Felix [Auger-Aliassime], and yeah, it was a tough decision and tough to not have the video review to see in that moment. So I think it was good that we had it here. Yeah, I think it was the right call.”
This is not the first time that a situation like this has occurred with the young Brit, but video review was not present during Draper’s controversy with Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Cincinnati Open last year.
What has Carlos Alcaraz said about the Indian Wells video review controversy?
This topic was also brought to Alcaraz in his press conference, with the four-time Grand Slam champion asked whether it impacted the rest of his match.
Alcaraz confessed that he was not aware at the time of the point how many times the ball had bounced, but was very clear that it did not play a part in his defeat.
“Well, not really. I mean, I didn’t see if it was one bounce or two bounces at the beginning,” said Alcaraz. “So I was just waiting for the review.
“I mean, and after, you know, with the second review, it was in the middle of the point or after I hit it, so I wasn’t sure enough. So I didn’t hear, you know, while I was hitting the ball, but I wasn’t sure enough to say something.
“And, you know, waiting for the ball reviews, they didn’t bother to me at all. I mean, that way it was normal for the review, so all I can say is Jack came, he played much better than me. You know, that point didn’t affect, you know, for my play at all.”
Alcaraz will now look ahead to his next tournament at the Miami Open, with the men’s singles main draw beginning on Wednesday March 19.
While Draper will look to put this controversy behind him ahead of the Indian Wells final, where he will play Holger Rune.
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