{"id":521773,"date":"2026-03-08T03:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T03:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/521773\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T03:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T03:48:17","slug":"working-for-a-rhythm-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/521773\/","title":{"rendered":"Working For a Rhythm \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, March 7, 2026
Photo credit: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships<\/p>\n

INDIAN WELLS\u2014Down a set in his BNP Paribas Open return, Jack Draper didn\u2019t press the panic button.<\/p>\n

The defending champion welcomed the opportunity working for his rhythm.<\/p>\n

\"tennis<\/a>tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n

Draper roared back to beat Spanish veteran Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 scoring his seventh straight Indian Wells win.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Briton sports new apparel, switching from Nike to sleeveless Vuori, a new buzz cut and a search for familiar experience as he aims to jump start his season in the spot where he snared the biggest championship of his career.<\/p>\n

The left-handed Draper, who shut down his 2025 season after his first round US Open win to heal his aching left arm, said while three-set battles are occupational hazards, he\u2019s welcoming the chance to work overtime these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the more time I actually spend on court, the better,\u201d Draper said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be obviously playing three-set matches, but I think, for instance, today is first Masters 1000 back up. Been off the
tour for eight months, and so it\u2019s been difficult getting back into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think today helped me actually playing three sets and being able to stay out there a bit longer and work things out and be in those tough situations mentally, because saving breakpoints and having adversity against you in matches, you can\u2019t really replicate how you feel when you\u2019re in that
situation in practice and these types of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the final set, Draper broke for 2-1. Serving for the match, Draper dug out of a triple break point hole, pumping a pair of aces, to advance to a third-round clash vs. Buenos Aires champion Francisco Cerundolo.<\/p>\n

Twelve months after his inspired Indian Wells title run, Draper is aiming to string wins together and protect a Top 30 spot in the live rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysically, yeah, I mean, I want to spend a lot of time on court. I want to be out there competing more and more, but obviously I am very still fresh to coming back from my injury, and I have to be sensible and know that I have a long career ahead of me,\u201d Draper said. \u201cI\u2019m still a bit of time away from where I want to be physically, because I have to make up for lost time on the practice court and on the match court, but I\u2019m trending in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo week by week, day by day, things are getting better for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, March 7, 2026Photo credit: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships INDIAN WELLS\u2014Down a set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-521773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}