Top-10 bound Draper sinks Alcaraz in Indian Wells, reaches maiden Masters 1000 final

Jack Draper snapped two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz's 16-match win streak at the BNP Paribas Open on Saturday to power into his maiden ATP Masters 1000 final.

The 23-year-old Briton produced a gutsy response to dropping his first-career set to love to prevail 6-1, 0-6, 6-4. With his one-hour, 44-minute victory, Draper ensured that he will rise inside the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday.

🤹 JACK OF ALL TRADES 🤹

Sensational @jackdraper0 defeats two-time defending champion Alcaraz and punches his ticket into his first-ever Masters 1000 final!@BNPPARIBASOPEN | #TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/x4y3iNELga

— ATP Tour (@atptour) March 16, 2025

“It was a strange match in all honesty,” said Draper, who is now 2-3 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Alcaraz. “Carlos came out a little flat, I sensed that. I had a chance in the first game of the second, and he came up with an ace…

"What happened to him happened to me, I got tight, I had low energy. Against the top players in the world, they can change their momentum very quickly. I got lost out there for 25 minutes, but in the third, I was really proud of my competitiveness, my attitude and I somehow managed to get over the line.”

Alcaraz was aiming to become the first player born in 1991 or later to win three consecutive singles titles at an ATP Tour event, but he was unable to ride his momentum into the final set. Draper reacted to the Spaniard’s shift to a deeper return position and limited his ability to attack from the baseline by leveraging his heavy topspin forehands on the slower courts.

A pivotal moment in the final set came with Alcaraz serving at 15/15 in the third game. Draper chased down a drop shot, which umpire Mohamed Lahyani deemed 'not up', but the video review showed the Briton to have committed no foul. Despite the call coming before Alcaraz misplaced his next shot, Draper was eventually awarded the point before going on to break in that game, as the umpire ruled his call had not hindered the Spaniard.

Inevitably, nerves began to creep in for Draper, who needed two attempts to successfully serve out the match and seal his spot in the biggest final of his career. Alcaraz, a five-time ATP Masters 1000 champion, began to unleash from both wings and reeled off two straight games to claw back to 4-5. Yet Draper stood firm to notch his second victory over a Top-5 player this week, having defeated World No. 4 Taylor Fritz in the fourth round.

The second-seeded Alcaraz was ultimately forced to rue an out-of-sorts opening set, in which he hit 13 unforced errors and landed just 38 per cent of his first serves, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

Draper, who is up to No. 8 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, will face Holger Rune in the first final between two players born in the 2000s above ATP 500 level. Following runs to the fourth round at the Australian Open, and to the championship matches in Doha and Indian Wells, the Briton is 12-2 in 2025. Twelve months ago, Draper was World No. 43, but he has enjoyed a promising rise since, highlighted by tour-level titles in Stuttgart and Vienna, which came either side of his dazzling run to the US Open semi-finals last year.

Despite dropping 600 PIF ATP Rankings points, Alcaraz will remain as the World No. 3 on Monday.