"It was a tough situation": Jack Draper opens up about what he said to Carlos Alcaraz during Indian Wells semifinal controversy

Britain’s Jack Draper has revealed what he said to his opponent during the controversial incident at the Indian Wells. The 23-year-old registered one of the biggest wins of her career as he defeated Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinal of the ongoing ATP 1000 event in California with a score of 6-1, 0-6, 6-4.

During the match, there was a controversial incident in the third set that resulted in heated exchange between the players. Draper, in his attempt to return the drop shot of his opponent, was penalised by the chair umpire by claiming that the ball was bounced twice.

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The British tennis star contested the call and was proven right. The chair umpire asked the points to be replayed by stating that he made the call before Alcaraz hit the ball out of play. Draper decided to contest that call as well and was proven right again. Subsequently, he was awarded the point. The 2024 US Open semifinalist later spoke to the media after the match and revealed what he said to the young Spaniard during the conversation.

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“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.”

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