By CNN
—
British tennis player Jack Draper won a grueling five-set match against American Marcos Giron at the Australian Open on Tuesday, then immediately raced to a courtside bin to throw up.
Draper defeated Giron 6-4 3-6 4-6 6-0 6-2 in a first-round match that lasted three hours and 20 minutes. After waiting at the net to shake his opponent’s hand, the 22-year-old Briton ran over to a bin by the side of the court to be sick.
It was Draper’s first-ever victory in the main draw of the Australian Open and set up a second-round match against another American – 14th seed Tommy Paul.
Temperatures exceeded 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Farenheit) in Melbourne on Tuesday but, despite the heat, Draper attributed most of his physical struggles to the “psychological stress” of playing at a grand slam.
“I don’t usually get sick, not ever. I think it’s weird,” Draper told reporters.
“It was obviously a physical match. It’s tough conditions. It wasn’t that long for a five-set match … I’m still a young player, so getting used to the environment around these slams and the tension is difficult,” added the world No. 55.
“I think it was more kind of psychological stress today that was causing my fatigue rather than the physical nature because I felt better in the fifth set than I did the first.”
Draper’s physical issues were evident throughout the match against Giron as he took a medical timeout at the end of the second set and then left the court at the start of the third.
Draper also said that he suffered painful cramping in his stomach straight after the match, telling reporters: “You can get it all over your body, but obviously when I did throw up, I was tensing my ab.
“I saw a photo of it and it looks like it’s just hard as a rock, like it just doesn’t want to move. It’s very painful. It was cramping, spasming.”
Draper got off to a strong start when he broke Giron, who was also searching for his first main draw win at the Australian Open, at 2-2 before going on to take the first set.
But the American responded with two breaks of serve across the next two sets to take a 2-1 lead, all while his opponent appeared to be toiling in the challenging conditions.
At that point in the match, Draper took a break and returned to the court with renewed energy. He raced through the next set to love and won the final four games of the deciding set, sealing the victory when he whipped a forehand winner down the line to close out a 14-shot rally.
“I’m really proud to come through this match, and I think it is really important for me,” Draper said.
“But there’s still some underlying stuff that obviously I need to work on, whether that be psychologically starting these slams or just the way I’m handling the anxiety and the nerves because I obviously don’t want to play a match like that where I feel like I’m on my hands and knees a lot, and I’m struggling to breathe and calm myself down.”
The good news for Draper is that he defeated his next opponent, the 14th-seeded Paul, in straight sets at the Adelaide International last week, and now has a day to recover before Thursday’s second-round match.
