Jack Draper enters the Wimbledon meat grinder as Britain’s Big Thing | Barney Ronay
First-round stroll past Báez shed light on shapes, sounds and iconography of newfound Draper fandom at SW19As Jack Draper arched his back to serve, a set and a break up on Court No 1, a well-groomed man in thick silver sunglasses stood up in his seat and posed for a photo in front of the action, chewing theatrically on the handle of his lustrously finished handbag, thereby conveying to his social media feed that he was (a) present, vital, right here in the moment; and (b) not very interested in tennis.Nobody seemed to mind.In fairness Wimbledon’s big Tuesday best-of-British event did feel a bit like this.Less an act of white-hot sporting drama, more just, like, a really cool thing happening.An hour and 13 minutes into this first-round match Sebastián Báez would retire with a knee injury at 6-2, 6-2, 2-1 down.
There will be far tougher opponents than the world No 38 who barely left an imprint on the Wimbledon turf, and whose only obvious victory plan was to keep bunting the ball back until one of you dies of heat exhaustion,There was no chance of that on the Wimbledon grass,Instead this was the tennis equivalent of watching a man being run over by a truck, albeit a very elegant, high-end, luxury-spec truck,And so Draper has now progressed to the second round, and also taken a step along another significant pathway,For Draper this Wimbledon is a kind of coming out event, a society debut.
Not in any sport-related sense.He’s No 4 in the world.He has already vaulted through every level placed in front of him, from the nepo-baby jibes of the junior tennis circuit, a place that makes even the drowned world of kids cricket seem insufficiently neurotic, to proving himself as a genuine elite presence on tour.But this is also Draper’s first post-Murray summer, his first as the Big Thing, the key domestic TV event at this arena of swoons, flushes and also hunger.It would emerge later that the handbag-biting man was in fact part of a team of influencers sent by Draper’s fashion sponsor to create their own sub-spectacle, amplify the brand, influence.
The All England Club can hardly complain.Wimbledon and Draper is also essentially a brand partnership.British star power has been vital to this place’s transformation into a hugely potent financial engine, spawned out of the appearance of sporting mania as a feature in public life in the mid-90s.Wimbledon entwined itself around this, the corporate hospitality dollar, the pink trouser pound.The industry is real.
It needs meat,So Draper must head into the grinder, a deeply mannered kind of grinder, but a grinder nonetheless,Court No 1 was viciously hot and humid in late afternoon, the kind of heat that sits on every surface like heavy gravity,There was a slow wave of whoops and whistles as the players walked out, Draper picturesquely vast next to Báez,There are still questions to be answered here.
What are the shapes, the sounds, the iconography of the Draper fandom?Henman Energy was fevered and oddly sexless, with a vague sense of cheering for a minor royal cousin,The Murray years were more nuanced, a deeper bond, a higher ceiling, a sense of greatness to be touched,Draper is something else, a product off the high-end factory line, a machine made to hit and stretch and win,You can see why elite players consider him elite,There are no weaknesses in his physical toolbox.
Tall but good feet.Power but still whippy and light in his shoulders.And yes we will objectify him, because this is tennis, a relentless elite sport, but also basically a country-house flirtation that got out of hand.The jaw, the shoulders, the sculpted lines.This thing is rangy, classical, elite-athlete handsome.
We have one of these now.How is it going to feel?“Come on Drapes” lone voices shouted in the crowd, trying it out, as he hit long in the opening game, searching for timing in that full-rotation forehand.But with 20 minutes gone it was already 5-1.The second set was if anything even easier.And outside on the big-screen slope beyond Court No 1 the vibe was equally comfortable.
There are issues to be settled here.What will we call this space now, given it seems to need to be called something? Henman Hill always sounded like a bottle of bad English wine.Does it have to be a hill? Jackatoa? The Jackerhorn? Jackstock? Is there a Jackstonbury angle?All of this fluff has a hard commercial edge.Sport must be sold to people who don’t like sport.Eyeballs must be harvested.
But it is a shame, because Draper is interesting in his own right.He has taken time to find his best self, struggled with nerves, and spoken recently about the influence of his breathing coach, which is very Big Sport kind of thing, a place where often the real interest is the challenge of simply surviving in this world, existing on that lighted stage.Draper has spent a lot of time working out how to be alone, waiting better, being in hotels better, remembering to breathe, learning to win, as here, without taking a bite out of himself.On this evidence it might just be an unusually comfortable reboot.
AstraZeneca boss ‘wants to shift stock market listing to US’
AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has reportedly said that he would like to shift the company’s stock market listing from the UK to the US.The boss of Britain’s most valuable listed company has spoken privately about a preference to move the listing to New York, the Times reported. It added that he had also considered moving the company’s domicile.The FTSE 100 company’s share price rose by 2.8% on Tuesday, with most of the increase happening after the story was published
Macquarie digs deeper for redemption at Southern Water. There was no alternative | Nils Pratley
Many took the view in 2021 that Macquarie should have been run out of town, rather than be allowed to own another English water company.The giant Australian financial outfit’s former outing, remember, was at Thames Water from 2006 to 2017, which was when the absurd games of financial leverage began at the UK’s biggest water company. The then-chair of Ofwat later told MPs he asked himself the question “What do we do here, with that reputation?” when Macquarie made the best financial offer to rescue Southern Water.The deal was done eventually with Ofwat’s blessing. Macquarie-managed funds injected £1bn to take control and its infrastructure boss declared in an open letter that the firm would be “a responsible long-term steward of Southern Water and believes it can help the company deliver the transformation it requires”
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a “vibe check” on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals.Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.A few hours later he added that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up
England v India: second women’s T20 cricket international – as it happened
Raf Nicholson has filed her report from Bristol, so it’s time for us to shut up shop. It was more competitive than the first game but ultimately India were emphatic winners. Goodnight.Nat Sciver-Brunt’s verdictWe started really well by taking three wickets in the Powerplay. There was a big partnership after that and we probably didn’t adapt as quickly as we’d like
Coco Gauff knocked out of Wimbledon in first round by nerveless Dayana Yastremska
“Yeah, this definitely sucks,” said a tearful Coco Gauff. She was trying, and struggling, to put her finger on why she had become the most high profile casualty of a typically consequential first round at Wimbledon. “I don’t know, I just feel a little bit disappointed in how I showed up today.”The question before the tournament was whether Gauff could cement her standing at the top of the game by adding Wimbledon to this year’s French Open title for a “Channel Slam”. The answer turned out to be a rather decisive “no”
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