If Jack Draper is trying to avoid comparisons to the great Andy Murray he is going about things entirely the wrong way.
Two years ago in the second round of the Australian Open, the Scot broke Thanasi Kokkinakis as he served for the match and came back to win a late-night epic.
On Thursday, in the second round of the Australian Open, Draper broke Kokkinakis as he served for the match and…well, you get the picture.
It was not as late (11.55pm rather than 4.05am) and not quite as epic but this was a thriller of which Novak Djokovic’s new coach would have been proud, and another exhibit in the growing dossier of evidence to suggest that we have someone special on our hands in Jack Draper.
The final knockings read 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in four hours and 35 minutes.
At two sets to one and 5-4 up with the wind in his sails, Kokkinakis was four points away from victory. Draper responded with his best return game of the match to break to love.
Jack Draper took on the Australian crowd as he battled back to beat Thanasi Kokkinakis
Draper cupped an ear to the Australian crowd after earning a crucial break in the fourth set
The British No1 beat Kokkinakis in a five set epic, two years after Andy Murray did the same
He even cupped an ear to the Aussie crowd; perhaps inadvisable but awfully good fun. In theory he was still a long way from the finish line; in practice you felt there was only one winner from there.
In the third round, would you believe it, he plays another Aussie, Aleksandar Vukic. Draper is on his way to becoming public enemy number one round these parts.
Kokkinakis was brilliant for pretty much the entire match apart from the two games that really mattered: when he served for the match and at 3-4 in the fifth when he conceded a decisive break. In truth he has a history of blinking with the finish line in sight, with the Murray marathon just one example.
Ever since his main draw debut here in 2014, when he won his first round as a wildcard and impressed in defeat to Rafael Nadal, ‘Kokky’ has been a firm favourite here.
He has a double dose of support in Melbourne, with the huge Greek ex-pat community in his corner as well as the Aussies. The son of Greek immigrants, his blue shorts here bear the legend of a helmeted spartan warrior.
The Greco-Aussie crowd were rowdy, calling out incessantly before and in between Draper’s serves.
Umpire Marijana Veljovic was becoming gradually more verbose as she tried to compose different ways of telling people to shut up. ‘Please, ladies and gentlemen, cheering is excellent but please do not destroy it by calling out before a player is about to serve.’
At his best he is a lovely, effortless player but, a little like Draper in the early years of his career, Kokkinakis has struggled to stay fit for an extended period. He is currently dealing with niggles in the shoulder, hip and leg.
Kokkinakis had struggled with niggles in the shoulder, hip and leg during the second round tie
Kokkinakis, the son of Greek immigrants, was backed by a vocal Greco-Aussie crowd
Every big serve he banged down seemed to come with an answered twinge of the shoulder. Even high in the John Cain stands his grimace was visible.
That did not stop him producing a remarkable serving display, landing 74 per cent of first serves and winning 79 per cent of those points.
Those numbers are superb but in the first set they were ridiculous: he made 32 of his first 35 first serves, winning 91 per cent.
All Draper could reasonably do was take care of his own serve and wait for his opponent to start missing.
The way Draper lost the first-set tiebreak was extremely unfortunate. Serving at 2-3, he thrice had to pull out of his service motion as Aussie voices shouted out just as he was about to toss the ball up. Umpire Marijana Veljovic pleaded with them to keep quiet but the damage to Draper’s rhythm had been done and the double fault felt almost inevitable.
The No15 seed got back into the match by winning the third set but this was not the same Draper we saw during his triumphant second half of 2024.
Draper was too passive in his first round, a five-set slog against Mariano Navone, and the same failing was present here.
He does not look to be ripping into his forehand with the same velocity as we were used to seeing in his run to the US Open semi-finals, or the title in Vienna.
Draper scrapped and fought to keep himself in the contest and eventually topple Kokkinakis
Kokkinakis was dominating the baseline exchanges but Draper did what he does: he scrapped and fought and kept himself in the contest.
He clung to his opponent’s coattails and when the moment came gave them an almighty tug, to send Kokkinakis toppling and himself into the third round. What a match it was.
After his victory against Kokkinakis’s close friend Nick Kyrgios in the first round, Jacob Fearnley might have hoped for a quieter evening against Arthur Cazaux.
In fact, the Frenchman’s fans were so loud that an adjacent match had to be moved to a different court.
But this 23-year-old Scot continues to deal with everything this sport throws at him, and he came from a set and a break down to win 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3. That sets up a meeting with No2 seed and two-time Grand Slam finalist Alexander Zverev.
Court 6 at Melbourne Park is curiously situated with a normal stand on one side and a bar area on the other. There was constant chatter and drinking from the bar – who broadly favoured Fearnley – and football-style chanting from the stand, which was dominated by a section of Frenchmen.
As he did against Kyrgios, Fearnley will have drawn on his experience playing in the bear pit atmospheres of college tennis for Texas Christian University.
He went 5-1 down in the first set in two instalments, as the players were on and off due to rain. In that sense this will have felt like home for Fearnley: the weather was more like Montrose than Melbourne, grey and windy with spots of rain around all day.
Jacob Fearnley came from a set down to beat France’s Arthur Cazaux in the second round
Fearnley’s steep climb up the rankings continues and the Brit will now face Alexander Zverev
Harriet Dart won the opening set against Donna Vekic but ultimately lost to the Croatian star
Jodie Burrage put up an impressive fight against Coco Gauff in a straight sets defeats
But once he settled Fearnley’s assertive game – he generates surprising power with his slight frame – took him into the ascendancy. Patrons sat around tables just a few feet from the court leapt up from their bar stools to roar Fearnley towards victory.
His next round is a free hit; he can come out swinging against Zverev and see where that takes him.
Fearnley is up to 77th now in the live rankings as his steep climb from the 600s continues. Eventually he will meet with a bump in the road but for now it seems the only way is up.
Harriet Dart and Jodie Burrage fell short in their bids to cause second round upsets in the women’s singles draw.
Dart won the opening set against Olympic silver medallist Donna Vekic, but the Croatian stormed back to win 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.
Burrage had threatened a fightback against third seed Coco Gauff having battled back to serve for the second set, but the 2023 US Open winner recovered to complete a 6-3, 7-5 victory.
