Jack Draper won the biggest title of his career in Indian Wells (Image: Getty)
Britain’s lifted the biggest title of his career in Indian Wells one day after sealing his top-10 debut. Draper thrashed No.12 seed 6-2 6-2 in his first Masters 1000 final on Sunday night to be crowned the champion of the event dubbed the ‘fifth Grand Slam’. The 23-year-old is now set to rise to a career-high ranking of No.7 in the world.
Draper had already sealed a place in the top 10 when he upset two-time defending champion in Saturday’s semi-final. And he backed up his big win with a statement performance against Rune, a former world No.4 and previous Paris Masters champion.
Draper raced into a 4-0 double-break lead before the Dane finally got on the board.
But Rune couldn’t reduce his heavy deficit, and the 6’4” big-serving Brit stormed through the first set in just 29 minutes, barely breaking a sweat on his service games.
Draper continued his demolition job, breaking in the first game of the decider to inch closer to his biggest title.
The errors kept coming from Rune’s racket and another costly mistake handed Draper his fourth break, giving him the chance to serve for the title.
On Draper’s second championship point, Rune sent the ball wide, handing Draper the title of his life. And the 23-year-old got down on his knees, raising his arms into the air in victory.
Jack Draper thrashed Holger Rune to claim the title (Image: Getty)
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Draper becomes the fifth British man to win a Masters 1000 title after , Cameron Norrie, Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski.
The British No.1 became emotional as he explained what the victory meant to him. “It’s incredible. I wasn’t expecting this, I put in a lot of work over time and I’m just so, so grateful and so happy to be out here, to be able to play, my body feeling healthy, to feel great in the mind,” he said straight after the match.
“Just all the work I’ve done over the last few years feels like it’s coming together on the biggest stage and I can’t put that into words.
“I felt like I came out, I approached the game well. Yesterday I had a few ups and downs in the match, bit low energy against Carlos and I kind of learnt from that.
“Today I knew Holger was going to come out and be playing some really great tennis so I needed to be aggressive and play to win from the first ball and I did an amazing job of that. I didn’t allow him to play and I feel like I dictated the match really well.”
After spending years battling injuries and taking time away from the sport to recover, Draper believes he belongs at the top of the game.
He added: “I feel like I deserve it in all honesty, the amount of adversity I’ve been through, the amount of sacrifices, the amount of time that people around me have put into me and the hard work.
“It’s an emotional feeling to know how much you’ve gone through and put in. To be here now to say that I’m going to be No. 7 in the world tomorrow, I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”