Jack Draper storms previous Alex de Minaur in US Open quarter-final

Is it happening again? Three years on from the original Fairytale of New York, Jack Draper is writing a cover version – set to the crash of cymbals and pounding percussion.

Three years on from Emma Raducanu‘s title her fellow British player is into his first Grand Slam semi-final after crushing Alex de Minaur with another display of poise and brutal power.

Like Raducanu, he is through without dropping a set after this 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 victory. And like Raducanu, it has to be said, his draw has opened up like a Long Island oyster.

Well that ends now: in the last four Draper will face the winner the blockbuster meeting between 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev and world No 1 Jannik Sinner.

He will need to produce the match of his life to win that one but this hugely impressive 22-year-old has answered every question asked of him this fortnight; we would be foolish to doubt his chances .

Everything has come together for Draper this fortnight, in terms of his route through the draw but also in his own game. The grinding, counter-punching style he developed as a diminutive youth and the muscular approach he has forced himself to adopt this year: in New York those two elements have been joined in perfect synthesis.

He bullied De Minaur on serve with first-strike tennis but was equally happy to trade from the baseline. He volleyed well and ripped passing shots on the rare occasions De Minaur ventured to the net. Having pinned his man back he cut drop shots into the vacant open court.

Both men were looking to make a first Grand Slam semi-final here and on paper No 10 seed De Minaur was the favourite. But Draper never gave him a sniff.

De Minaur was made to look lightweight, a scuffler and a nudger. Draper once said that when he faced a top player he used to ‘feel like I’m 5ft 6in’. Well here he made his 6ft opponent look like an Oompa Loompa.

The bone-white elephant in the room was De Minaur’s hip, which he injured at Wimbledon. He feared it would keep him out of the US Open and, before facing Dan Evans in the third round, self-diagnosed as 80-85 per cent fit.

There didn’t look much wrong with him in the wins against Evans and Jordan Thompson and De Minaur himself claimed to be ‘peaking for the right moment’.

He certainly looked hampered here, far from his fleet-footed best. Perhaps he pulled up badly this morning – or perhaps he simply had not faced an opponent with the requisite quality to expose his physical difficulties until now. After all, Novak Djokovic looked pretty good after knee surgery at Wimbledon until Carlos Alcaraz decapitated him in the final.

Draper was similarly dominant here, as he has been in every match in New York. His good draw has been made to appear even better by how poorly each of his opponents have played against him.

In his last three round in particular, Botic van de Zanschulp collapsed, Tomas Machac played what might have been the worst match of his life, and here De Minaur was a shadow of his sprightly best.

It has happened too often to be a coincidence; there is something about Draper’s game that is bringing out the worst in his opponents and what a precious quality that is in a tennis player.

Part of it is Draper’s leftie serve – never pleasant to face – and there is something about the heavy spin he imparts on his forehand that makes it curve awkwardly into the opponent’s body on the forehand side.

There is also the fact that Draper has become a far more complete, aggressive player in the last few months. Players are having to come up with a different strategy against him.

Draper has talked this fortnight of being careful not come too fast out of the blocks and thus leaving himself leggy in a potential fifth set. That has led to some slow starts in his earlier rounds but nothing of the sort here as he won the first six points of the match on his way to an early break.

De Minaur broke straight back but that never looked like stemming the tide. Draper was dominating the prime real estate, forcing the Aussie to scuttle around behind the baseline.

The normally steady De Minaur was spraying errors, especially on the forehand side.

But he is nothing if not tenacious and in earning a break point as Draper served for the set at 5-3 he had an opening. In response Draper went to one of the key plays in his US Open playbook: on break point, serving from the left, he goes for the wide slider and comes into the net.

Like Arjen Robben jagging in from the right to shoot left-footed, opponents know what is coming but that doesn’t mean they can do anything about it, certainly not on a surface where the slice serve slides away as much as this.

Draper broke early in the second set and, with De Minaur beginning to feel his left hamstring – perhaps collateral damage from the hip – it felt as though Draper was awfully close to the finish line.

Surprisingly it was Draper who received the first medical timeout of the match, for his right thigh, getting another round of binding on top of strapping that had been applied pre-match.

That was the first sign of any discomfort this fortnight and perhaps the news that he was not the only one on court with physical issues gave De Minaur some hope.

Draper has admitted that the ease of some of his wins has led to lapses in concentration and this certainly felt like such an occasion as he went from 4-2 up to 4-5 down.

Remarkably that was the furthest Draper had been dragged into a set this tournament. How would he respond when things weren’t going all his own way? By reeling off the next three games to move a set away from the semi-finals.

He broke for 3-2 with a crushing forehand down the line. A second break was hardly required but he took it anyway, and surged into the semi finals.