So, I got this idea a while back, maybe last year, about trying to figure out Jack Draper’s matches. Not in some super serious way, you know, just as a bit of a personal project. I saw him play a few times and thought, ‘this guy’s got something’, but he seemed a bit up and down. So I thought, hey, let me see if I can get a feel for when he’s gonna win or lose.
It started pretty simple. I just made sure to catch his matches whenever they were on. Didn’t matter the tournament, I’d try to watch. At first, it was just watching, getting a vibe for his game. Does he look confident? Is his serve landing? Stuff like that. Basic gut feeling stuff, really.
Getting into the weeds a bit
Then I thought, maybe I need to be a bit more organized. So, I grabbed an old notebook. Seriously, just pen and paper. After each match I watched, I’d jot down a few things:
- Who was the opponent?
- What surface was it? Clay, grass, hard court?
- Did he win or lose? Score?
- Just a quick note on how I thought he played – like ‘looked tired’ or ‘serve was firing’.
It wasn’t rocket science. I wasn’t digging into deep stats like rally lengths or anything crazy. Just simple observations. I tried to see if there were any patterns. Like, maybe he struggled against players with a big serve, or maybe he did better in longer matches. I spent quite a bit of time just looking over my notes, trying to connect dots.
Reality bites
Man, it was harder than I thought. Tennis is just wild sometimes. One week he’d look unbeatable, crushing a top player, and I’d think ‘Okay, he’s found his rhythm’. Then the next week, he’d lose to someone ranked way lower, someone my notes suggested he should handle easily. That was frustrating.
I remember one tournament specifically, I think it was on hard courts. Based on my notes, he had a good draw, opponent he’d beaten before. I was pretty confident. Told my mate, ‘Draper’s taking this one, easy’. Nope. He lost. And not just lost, but didn’t look like himself at all. My prediction was totally wrong. It kind of made me realize how much depended on things I couldn’t see – maybe he wasn’t feeling well, maybe something was up off-court. You just don’t know.
What I learned from it
So, did I crack the code? Absolutely not. Not even close. My predictions were probably right about as often as a coin flip, maybe slightly better on a good day. But doing it wasn’t really about being right all the time.
It was more about the process. It made me watch tennis differently, more actively. I started noticing smaller things about players’ games and how matches flowed. I got a much better appreciation for how tough the pro tour is and how many factors go into winning or losing. It’s not just about stats on a page.
I don’t keep the notebook anymore. It was fun for a while, a good way to engage with the sport more deeply. But yeah, predicting tennis consistently? I’ll leave that to the experts, or maybe just enjoy the surprise.
