There was plenty of excitement when Raducanu\u2019s partnership with Alcaraz was unveiled a few weeks ago, but some questioned why she wasn\u2019t teaming up with compatriot Draper.<\/p>\n
And world No. 5 Draper has already answered that question, admitting he couldn\u2019t blame Raducanu for picking one of the best players in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cA wise person once told me you should find the best partner, and that’s what she did in Alcaraz. I don’t blame her at all for that,\u201d he said earlier this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think she will have a lot of fun playing with Carlos. He’s obviously the best player in the world probably right now, along with [Jannik] Sinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat at doubles, as well. Saw that with Rafa [Nadal] at the Olympics. She’s gone about and chose the best partner, for sure. Hopefully they do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Draper may want to take back his well-wishes for Raducanu and Alcaraz, as he will face them in the first round on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Their match is scheduled not before 2pm local time (7pm UK) – less than 24 hours after Alcaraz\u2019s Cincinnati Open final. The winner will likely have to play their quarter-final roughly an hour after finishing the match.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard faced his biggest rival, Jannik Sinner<\/a>, in the championship match in Ohio on Monday afternoon. But it lasted just 23 minutes, as Sinner retired citing illness while he was 5-0 down.<\/a><\/p>\n It means the blockbuster Raducanu\/Alcaraz vs Draper\/Pegula match is in doubt, as the world No. 2 has a tight window to travel to New York ahead of his first match alongside Raducanu.<\/p>\n While it wasn\u2019t the ending anyone wanted in Cincinnati, at the very least, it means Alcaraz has more time to recover before his US Open mixed doubles campaign gets underway.<\/p>\n To be the first to receive the latest tennis news, join our WhatsApp community<\/a> or newsletter<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was plenty of excitement when Raducanu\u2019s partnership with Alcaraz was unveiled a few weeks ago, but some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[36256,870,6962,7258,8833,101,118,872,56,54,55,6545,10302],"class_list":["post-77553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alcaraz-raducanu","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-emma-raducanu","tag-jack-draper","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-open","tag-us-open-mixed-doubles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}