INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Tennis throws curveballs sometimes, and sometimes they come in bunches.
Jack Draper upset Carlos Alcaraz on his favorite court in the world Saturday at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, sprinting to a lead and weathering an Alcaraz blitz, then holding it together and letting Alcaraz play just loose enough to give him the opening to break the Spanish champion who had not lost here in nearly three years.
By the end, Alcaraz, who said he had been nervous all day and obsessing over the test he expected Draper to deliver, was surging once more. But Draper, the big-serving lefty from Britain, rode his power to the biggest win of his career and had made his first ATP Masters 1,000 final, the level just below the Grand Slams.
“I did believe I could at least cause him some problems,” Draper said. “I was expecting him to come out playing incredible, and there were a few errors here and there.”
And then some.
Alcaraz, who lives his best life at Indian Wells, playing golf on his off days and pummelling his opponents, chalked up the slow start and the loss to having fallen into the trap of thinking too much about his opponent rather than focusing on himself.
“This one hurts,” Alcaraz said. “I don’t want to lose any match, but I think this one was even more special to me. It was difficult today, a lot of nerves in the match.”
Alcaraz was rolling through a comeback until the chair umpire called a double bounce on a ball that Draper scrambled to get to. After Draper called for a video review, the call was reversed, and since Alcaraz had missed the ensuing shot, he lost the point. The lengthy debate seemed to stop Alcaraz’s momentum, though in a moment of honesty, he told Draper that the mistaken call had not caused him to miss his shot, a statement that likely gave the point to Draper without his having to replay it.
Video review DRAMA 🍿
Two calls overruled in one point!@carlosalcaraz | @jackdraper0 | #TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/2PYjtwNTvF
— BNP Paribas Open (@BNPPARIBASOPEN) March 16, 2025
Alcaraz suddenly lost the steadiness and flow he’d found early in the second set, allowing him to recover from the loss of six of the first seven games. In a flash, he lost his serve twice after the muffed call.
Draper wobbled too, losing his serve on his first attempt to close out the match, but settled down on his second attempt and finished the two-time defending champion 6-1, 0-6, 6-4. His win sets up a surprise final against Holger Rune, who upset Daniil Medvedev in straight sets in the first match of the day.
“Incredible,” Draper said, “to beat Carlos Alcaraz on this court.” The win puts him into the top 10 for the first time in his career.
“I got a bit tight in the end, but I got through,” he said.
For more than half an hour, Draper had been listening to what might be the most nightmarish sound in tennis: the squeaking that Alcaraz’s shoes make as they tap dance across the purple and green silicone of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
You can hear it from 200 feet away and six stories up. Those feet squeak, squeak, squeak when they are going forward and when they are going backward. You can close your eyes and know what’s going on.
Alcaraz is rolling, floating around the court and dealing winners to every corner. Except for the rarest of moments, or when a swarm of bees descends, it’s what he mostly does at the BNP Paribas Open on his favorite court. After that rough start, during which he couldn’t get the right feel for the ball on his racket, it looked like he would finish the day doing that again, on a court where he hadn’t lost a match in nearly three years.
How long ago was that? A healthy and hot Rafael Nadal, on his way to winning the first two Grand Slams of the year, beat him on that day in 2022. Nadal has since retired, and Alcaraz has become one of the dominant players of the sport’s new era.
Alcaraz had shown no sign that he might come out flat against Draper. He had cruised into the semifinals without losing a set. He destroyed Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 16 and got through a drop in his level against Francisco Cerundolo in the quarterfinals.
And then he played what he called one of the worst sets of his career.
“I’m improving,” he said. “I’m getting more mature. I’m getting close to what I want it to be, but I still sometimes (am) playing such a really high level, and then my level (goes) down a lot. So I have to think about it. I have to keep working, keep going. Hopefully soon, it’s going to be much better.”
It looked like he was going to get away with an up-and-down day when he reeled off six straight games to take the second set. But Draper went to the toilet, looked himself in the mirror and had a talk with himself.
What did he say?
“There’s no time to be tired, no time to be thinking about being down here,” he said. “I had to really knuckle down.”
Draper has become increasingly dangerous in the last six months, especially in the U.S., where he has a growing following among young fans. There’s often a horde of teenage girls seeking his autograph.
He made the semifinals of the U.S. Open in September, and the conditions at Indian Wells are especially friendly to his game. His left-handed serve can be a problem anywhere and the slow, gritty court in the desert allows him to kick as high as he can anywhere. Alcaraz spent most of the afternoon hanging out near the back fence so he could get a decent look at the ball.
But that tactic made him vulnerable to the go-to move for a lefty: slicing the ball wide to a right-hander’s backhand on the ad side of the court. One of those serves gave Draper match point as Alcaraz, surging once more, couldn’t get it back. Another sidewinder on the deuce side had the same result. And just like that, Draper had the biggest win of his career and a second defeat of Alcaraz.
“I’ve got one more tomorrow,” he said.
And then it was time for dinner and hopefully a good night of sleep.
(Photo: Andy Abeyta / The Desert Sun / USA Today Network via Imagn Images )
