Win or lose, Jack Draper has the ultimate tennis mum
Jack Draper’s progress at the US Open this week has been masterful and exciting. His serious demeanour in interviews accord with that square jaw and indefatigable match play. Serious comment, few jokes, not too much grinning, just a flick back of the hair and acknowledgements of his opponent and the crowd. Of course we cheer on a Briton at a major tennis grand slam, but it’s his mother whom I’m, metaphorically, hoisting onto my shoulders.
Nicky Draper was in New York to see his semi-final defeat – but she has spent much of her son’s run in the UK, watching with a glass of wine in hand, sloshing the odd drop onto the sofa and carpet as she leaps about during games. “I’ve been watching every match with my dad – his Sky box isn’t working – with my dog, swearing and cursing, jumping up and down, clapping,” she told the BBC’s Gary Richardson.
One can’t but admire the parent who doesn’t trail in the wake of their gifted offspring, there at every match, a permanent fixture in the box (unlike Judy Murray, who was as likely to be on court watching her sons playing as they would have racquets in their tennis bags).
But Nicky’s there at home, screaming at the telly with the rest of us. It’s redolent of coach Sam Mussabini, as portrayed by Sir Ian Holm in Chariots of Fire, who couldn’t bear to watch Harold Abrahams’s 100m sprint to the line in 1920 and, staying in an adjacent hotel, realises his protégé has won only when the Union Jack is raised and he hears the British national anthem played.
“I’ve got both my boys out there, I think they’re doing all right without me,” she said (her older son, Ben, is also a professional tennis player).
After Jack’s victories they manage a quick chat on the telephone, usually when he’s immersed in the ice bath. She says things like, “brilliant, well done, how are you?” and she occasionally offers some advice – she is a professional coach after all. She told him recently, “I’d like to see a few more topspin lobs,” for a cheap point or two, which he duly delivered in the next match.
And so the delicate line between supporting and nightmare parent is shown – and don’t I know it. I’m a “tennis dad” and I’ve crossed that line.
My eldest son is 20, currently on a scholarship at a US university, where he plays college tennis for some six hours a day in between majoring in English. I can watch many of his matches on YouTube and it’s the best place for me: a long way away and with a screen to shout at. For as every tennis parent knows, that’s the best way.
I learnt my lessons early, when my son started competing from the age of six. And the first rule is, unlike in football, you don’t get involved. You stand on the sideline quietly and when the other guy cheats, you don’t wade in and scream about it and look for the referee.
Which is obviously what I did. The enemy, sorry, opponent may well be a cheating child but they also have their parents standing very close to you. And although their offspring is making dodgy line calls, you do not point this out.
You do not even coax your lad to raise his racquet in protest so that an umpire can come over and settle the dispute – always, by the way, in favour of the person who called it.
It is agony, but you learn to keep your ugly thoughts to yourself. Unlike on the rugby pitch, where fathers yell: “Turn and face,” to their pathetic, rain-sodden and muddy lads. Instead, you say nothing but save the odd, quiet, “Come on,” and “this point”.
And once you’ve mastered that, it’s nothing but an endless trawl across the country playing games in the rain, staying in horrid hotels, eating revolting food and trying to understand the complexities of tournaments and ranking.
All of which, I might add, was endured and meticulously managed by my son’s mother. I just obeyed orders (dads, just do the same) until, and then indeed after, the divorce.