Jack Draper bows out of Queen’s Club with defeat by Emil Ruusuvuori

After dismantling the fourth-seeded Taylor Fritz in the opening round of the Queen’s Club Championships and inhabiting his spot in the open top half of the draw, Jack Draper entered his second-round match with a realistic opportunity of a deeper run. Instead, he was dealt a valuable lesson in his young career as he was outplayed 6-2, 7-6(2) by the qualifier Emil Ruusuvuori.

In his handful of appearances at the top level of men’s professional tennis, the 20-year-old Draper has shown his potential and enjoyed success by brandishing his considerable weapons. But Ruusuvuori, a hard-working Finnish player, demonstrated all of the confidence he gained from the qualifying rounds as he neutralised Draper’s strengths and picked apart his weaknesses.

“There’s not many times that I get outplayed,” Draper said. “I felt like today was one of those days. He played a great match. There’s a few things that tactically maybe I could have done better but I’m a bit lost for words. I don’t really know what I could have done loads and loads better to be honest.”

From the beginning Ruusuvuori dealt with Draper’s big lefty serve excellently, retrieving a high number of returns and consistently landing them deep. During the rallies, he was relentless with his offence, standing on top of the baseline dominating with his forehand. As he controlled the exchanges he exposed Draper’s movement in the process, which has improved but remains a weakness at the highest level.

He served extremely well himself and Draper’s return of serve could not keep up, as Ruusuvuori breezed through the first set with minimal problems.

Throughout a tough second set, Draper fought admirably while under constant pressure in his own service games, finding big serves on