Jack Draper beaten as Great Britain suffer Davis Cup defeat to Argentina

Just a week after the first great grand slam breakthrough of his career, Jack Draper was already back on a tennis court in the middle of Manchester, battling until the death. Not only did he face a rapid turnaround from his run to the US Open semi-finals, this has been an unusually gruelling summer with the Olympics and numerous surface changes. Every other singles semi-finalist, male and female, chose to rest this week.

In his first experience of leading Great Britain’s Davis Cup team as its No 1 player, the challenge proved to be a step too far for Draper as he was outplayed 7-6 (5), 7-5 by an inspired Francisco Cerúndolo, who spent two hours firing outlandish forehand winners to every line on the court. His win gave Argentina a 2-0 victory against Great Britain.

In the opening rubber, Tomas Martín Etcheverry took the first point for Argentina by overpowering Dan Evans 6-2, 7-5. With this defeat, Great Britain’s chances of qualifying for the Davis Cup quarter-finals in Málaga are significantly diminished. They will play their final group stage match against Canada on Sunday. Canada have already beaten Argentina and Finland.

Even a 3-0 win for Great Britain against Canada may not be enough Leon Smith’s team since Argentina are heavily favoured to win each of their rubbers against Finland, who have already been eliminated.

Great Britain started the week on Wednesday with a 2-1 win against Finland despite resting Draper. With an imperious Canada already setting themselves apart in the group, it quickly became clear that the tie between Great Britain and Argentina could play a decisive role in determining the second qualifier.

Despite no longer boasting a player who can scale the heights of Juan Martín del Potro or Guillermo Coria, their current team captain, Argentina have three top-35 singles players aged 23-26 in No 26 Sebastián Báez, No 31 Cerúndolo and No 34 Etcheverry.

In front of a 9,000-strong crowd, Evans set the tone by performing at a high intensity from the beginning and generating four break points on Etcheverry’s serve at 2-1. But Etcheverry dug out an excellent hold and as the momentum immediately shifted, he rolled through five games in a row to take the set.

In the end, Etcheverry played a great match and the adjustments he made to manage Evans’s wicked backhand slice were crucial.

After getting pulled into too many lengthy backhand rallies in the opening exchanges, Etcheverry spent the rest of the match constantly looking to approach the net to Evans’s backhand and he volleyed well.

While Evans’s slice can be incredibly difficult to counter, his discomfort with his driven backhand is a weakness at the highest level. He was unable to consistently respond to Etcheverry’s net approaches with quality passing shots.

A year after experiencing his first taste of Davis Cup delirium on the very same court, Draper returned to Manchester on Friday afternoon in a different phase of his career. He is now a top-20 player, a grand slam semi-finalist and undeniably the very best tennis player in Great Britain.

With the British team down 0-1 against a tenacious Argentina squad, Draper stepped on to the AO Arena with significant weight on his shoulders.

His difficulties were compounded by a talented opponent in Cerúndolo, who is armed with one of the most destructive forehands on the tour. The 26-year-old was in the zone from early on, dictating the majority of exchanges and lasering forehand winners as he took an early break. Draper competed well, recovering from 3-5 down to force a tie-break, but he was always scrambling, chasing and defending until the end of the set. On the decisive points, Cerúndolo stepped inside the baseline and determined his own destiny.

Although Draper opened the second set clearly trying to impose himself earlier in the rallies, it quickly fell into a similar pattern to the first and the Cerúndolo forehand seemed to strike almost every line on the court.

Still, Draper had his chances, particularly generating three break points at 4-4 in the that could have shifted the momentum. On his second set point, Draper forced Cerúndolo behind the baseline before unleashing an inside-in forehand, but the ball flew well long.

As the second set reached its climax, Draper’s fatigue was written all over his face.

Although he fought hard until the end, he simply did not have enough against an opponent who refused to flinch in the decisive points. For his efforts, Cerúndolo was rewarded with one of the biggest victories of his career.