Jack Draper suffered a tough defeat in his opening match at the Miami Open as he could do little to \u00adneutralise a dominant serving performance from Reilly Opelka, who fired down 25 aces in two sets en route to a 7-6(3), 7-6(0) win.<\/p>\n
The defeat is a difficult setback for Draper, the 25th seed, as he \u00adcontinues to navigate the early stages of his return to competition from a bone bruise injury that forced him off the tour for seven months. Miami is just the third ATP tournament of his comeback.<\/p>\n
While some big servers view the phrase as a pejorative, undermining the other qualities in his game, the 6ft 11in Opelka proudly describes himself as a servebot. This performance was a demonstration of his destructive serving and his ability to completely take his racket out of the hands of his opponents. Draper did not face a break point in the entire match but he simply could not handle Opelka\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have many chances, especially on his serve,\u201d said Draper. \u201cI didn\u2019t get broken in the match, so that was kind of my job, right? And, I guess I\u2019m still at the very early stages of coming back from what was a very difficult injury to deal with. And if someone said that I\u2019m going to be playing Dubai, Indian Wells, here, and go home feeling good, then I would have taken that, because it\u2019s a long season to go.\u201d<\/p>\n