British interest in the men’s singles ends at the US Open as Jack Draper loses to No8 seed Andrey Rublev in bid to reach last eight

Jack Draper briefly drove his opponent along the road on Monday evening as a distraction during the US Open, but ran out of gas himself.

The 21-year-old lefthander became the last Briton to leave the singles at Flushing Meadows when he was beaten 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4 by world number eight Andrey on a sweaty Labor Day afternoon 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4 Rublev.

The fact that it wasn’t a bank holiday for Rublev was testament to what a difficult client Draper is, but ultimately the British player’s lack of recent matches and lack of experience with the best-of-five format was a deciding factor.

One consolation is that he walked away with £225,000 in prize money and enough points to revive a falsely low ranking of 123 brought on by the repeated injury problems that have so hampered his season.

Rublev raged against himself in the second set and broke down early in the third, but his precision power always made him the likely winner against a tired opponent, whose movement suffered at the end.

While the predicted rising temperatures didn’t quite materialize, conditions were damp amid the intermittent downpours that led to the roof closing on Louis Armstrong Stadium, something that wouldn’t hurt Draper’s chances.

This was the same field on which he comfortably disposed of eighth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second round of the year, so there were good memories to draw from.

It didn’t seem like it though, as he initially struggled with the Russian’s fast game, which is all about speed: with his feet, his forehand and his fast time between serves.

Draper uncharacteristically leaked backhand errors as he was pulled downfield by his opponent’s rapid fire and struggled to land enough first serves. It soon became clear why the Russian has such an excellent record against left-handers, winning 14 of his last 16. against left-handers.

In the second set he managed to turn the tide by fending off four break points to hold on to the 2-1. While the British player was frustrated by a faulty net string machine – and, even more bizarrely, asked the referee to ‘fix the air-conditioning’ in the open arena – the sometimes highly strung Rublev lost it completely due to his inability to convert chances.

As he crouched down he started yelling at himself, and the loss of control showed in the sixth game when he double fouled and was broken for 4-2. He then missed two break point chances to level again and there was more Basil Fawlty-style overconfidence, which will certainly have given encouragement to his younger challenger.

At the end of the set, Rublev left for a restful toilet break, followed by Draper. The break lasted about eight minutes, and it remains a mystery why tennis tolerates these interruptions just as the matches are coming to a boil.

Draper broke at the start of the third inning when the Russian threw a forehand, but Rublev had regained his mental balance and started to push through against a serve that had generally yielded many aces, but failed too many on the first try.

After leveling it 2-2, he took the decisive lead by drilling a forehand down the line to go two sets to one lead. Given that Draper had only played one four-set match in his career – and his third round on Saturday – it was always a challenge for him to win in five sets against a super-fit opponent.

“I felt the ball really well, I thought let’s try to make it as long as possible because Jack is coming back from injury,” said Rublev.

Carlos Alacaraz avoided the fate of fellow top contender Iga Swiatek as he reached the quarter-finals thanks to a 6-3 6-3 6-4 victory over Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi. The Wimbledon champion was waiting for the winner from Alex Zverev and Jannik Sinner.

Overnight in her fourth round, women’s title defender Swiatek was defeated by former French Open champion, No. 20 seed Jelena Ostapenko. She was followed on Monday night by third seed Jessica Pegula, who was beaten 6-1 6-3 by Madison Keys and again fell short in a Grand Slam.