Defending champion Frances Tiafoe is out of the 2024 Stuttgart Open after losing out to an inspired Jack Draper, who put on a clinic.
Draper is a natural on grass, thanks to growing up in Great Britain, where there is an abundance of grass courts. He moves supremely well on the surface and just feels very comfortable playing on it.
He’s had multiple notable results on the grass so far, and this week is shaping up to be a similar experience. He was facing defending champion Tiafoe, who can be good on grass but hasn’t played all that great this year.
Tiafoe’s opening set of their quarter-final match at the ATP 250 tournament in Stuttgart was solid, and he came out on top against a very solid Draper. The Brit didn’t play poorly at all, but he didn’t play as cleanly as he would in the latter two sets.
Tiafoe took it 7-5 with a late break to put himself one set away from a semi-final. He wouldn’t get it, though, as Draper turned the match dramatically. He hit 83 % of his first serves, and most of them were unreturnable.
He had 11 aces, dropping only three points overall on his serve in the second set. Tiafoe wasn’t nearly as sharp as he could have crumbled under pressure from his opponent, who also had 7 winners in live play.
It was a 6-4 win in the second set for the Brit. The final set was very close as neither player allowed too much on the serve. Tiafoe was focused, and outside of one break point, he didn’t feel too much pressure.
Draper didn’t either because the American couldn’t touch him at all when he was serving. He did lose more points on his serve but, for the most part, was again putting on a clinic with 11 aces and only one double fault in the third set.
The match ended in a tie-break, which Tiafoe played horribly, losing 1-7, as Draper won the match, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(1), while serving 31 aces. His next opponent will be Brandon Nakashima, who got a walkover into the semi-finals after Jan-Lennard Struff’s withdrawal.
