After He Won 'The Fifth Major', Here Are Five Reasons Why Jack Draper Can Win A Real Major

Like The Players’ Championship in golf, Indian Wells is often called “The Fifth Major” in tennis, so it would be easy to conclude that because Jack Draper has won it, he will inevitably go on to win a real Major. But is that the case? Or does he still face big challenges ahead if he is to secure one of the sport’s biggest prizes?

Here are five reasons why, having won “The Fifth Major” in tennis, Draper can go on to triumph in Melbourne, New York or Wimbledon, even if he might struggle to win in Paris.

Five Reasons Why Jack Draper Can Win A Major

1.Winning “The Fifth Major” Is As Close As You Can Get To Winning a Major

There are obviously no guarantees, but the fact that Draper has triumphed in the California desert is probably the best indication that he is ready to challenge for and perhaps even win a Grand Slam Singles title. Indian Wells is so often described as “The Fifth Major” in tennis precisely because it is probably the closest that any non-Grand Slam tournament comes to replicating the conditions and format of a Grand Slam tournament.

As one of the newly expanded Masters 1000 events, Indian Wells now lasts almost as long as a Grand Slam tournament (10 days, as opposed to 14); it similarly brings together all the best players in the f at one event; and it similarly requires a sustained degree of excellence against a succession of highly ranked (or at least in-form) players to win it.

There remain important differences between Indian Wells and a Grand Slam tournament, most importantly on the men’s side the fact that matches at Indian Wells are best-of-three sets rather than the best-of-five format that exists at the Majors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that winning the sport’s so-called “Fifth Major” is probably the best evidence that a player is ready to go on and challenge for a real Major.

1. He Beat All (Or Almost All) The Best Young Players To Win Indian Wells 

What is so impressive about Draper’s win at Indian Wells in 2025 is not just the fact that he won the tournament but the roll-call of opponents he beat to win it. In short, with the exception of world #1 Jannik Sinner, who is obviously currently banned because of failing two drug tests last year, Draper beat all the best young players – his direct challengers, indeed exact contemporaries – at or near the top of men’s tennis over the last 10 days.

The full roll-call of players he beat at Indian Wells 2025 is extraordinarily impressive: Carlos Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion and probably the best all-round player in the men’s game at the moment, who he beat in the semifinal; Holger Rune, the brilliant young Dane who has claimed that he can be “The Third Man” to rival Alcaraz and Sinner at the top of the sport, who he beat in the final; Taylor Fritz, a former Indian Wells winner and runner-up at the US Open last year; Ben Shelton, this year’s Australian Open semifinalist; and João Fonseca, the 18-year-old Brazilian who so superbly won both the 2024 Next Gen Event and the Argentinian Open in Buenos Aires earlier this year.

That is a list of opponents comparable to, or perhaps even better than, the list of opponents that a player might be expected to defeat en route to a Major final. So, having beaten them all so convincingly in just over a week, Draper can be hugely confident that he can beat a similar calibre of field at a Major, especially with the day’s rest between matches that a Slam provides. 

1. Because This Seems To be “JD Mk2”

Arguably, what was even more impressive than the tournament victory itself or the list of opponents that he beat in Indian Wells was the manner in which Draper performed throughout the entire event. In effect, he looked like “Jack Draper Mark II”, or “JD Mk2” for our age of abbreviation.

Ever since he reached the Wimbledon Boys’ final in 2018, nobody in tennis has doubted that Draper has all the basic (or rather highly developed) skills to go right to the top, especially his prodigious lefty serving and gigantic forehand. But doubts have persisted about both his physical wellbeing, caused by a succession of injuries over the last few years, and his mental strength, prompted by his failure to hang tough in the toughest of matches, such as the US Open semifinal against Jannik Sinner last year.

Indian Wells 2025 will have done much to dispel those doubts, even in Draper’s own mind. First, he looked almost like a completely new version of himself physically, with none of the nagging strains and niggles that seem to have bedevilled him before now. He moved beautifully throughout the tournament, both freely and easily, such that it was impossible to remember a more mobile Draper.

Equally, he twice failed to serve out in matches, against Fritz in the last 16 and against Alcaraz in the semifinal. However, on both occasions he was lucky (or talented) enough to be a double-break up and so, having lost one of those breaks, he regrouped spectacularly to serve out at the second attempt. That showed impressive mental fortitude to go alongside his newfound physical resilience.

1. He Is Inspired by Andy Murray But Not Under The Same Pressure

Famously, Draper attended the Wimbledon final in 2013 when Andy Murray became the first British man in 77 years to win the Wimbledon Singles title, so he has seen first-hand both the extraordinary pressure that is placed on British players (particularly male players) at the Home of Tennis but also the incredible joy they can generate, for themselves and the entire nation, by winning.

Fortunately for him, Draper will not be under the same kind of pressure that Murray was under before he won Wimbledon, or indeed any Major. It is arguable that no athlete anywhere was ever under the kind of pressure that Murray endured in trying to end Britain’s near-century-long search for a successor to Fred Perry. Obviously, there would still be huge pressure on Draper, or any other British man, trying to follow in Murray’s footsteps, but it simply cannot be as great as the mountain of pressure that was placed upon Murray.

Like Murray, Draper’s best chance of converting Masters success into Major glory should come on the faster surfaces of Melbourne, Wimbledon and the US Open (where, of course, he has already reached the last four). And like Murray, it is unlikely that he would ever be able to replicate his fast-surface form on the slower courts of Roland Garros. However, having proved over the last week how capable he now is of transforming his game, it is no longer inconceivable that Draper would do well at the French Open, too.

1. In The Post-Big Three Era, There Will Be More Chances To Win Majors

This is probably the biggest reason why Draper will have an outstanding chance of winning a Major to go alongside his Indian Wells success. The Big Three of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer effectively locked down men’s Major titles for two decades, only rarely allowing other players – notably Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka – to claim the sport’s biggest prizes. But in the post-Big Three era that we are now in (only Djokovic survives of the Three Tennis Gods and even he is surely getting close to retirement), there will almost certainly be many more opportunities for more male players to win Major titles.

It is true that in 2024 the four Majors were shared between Sinner and Alcaraz, but there is no guarantee that that will continue in the future. For one thing, Sinner is having to complete his drugs ban, which will mean that he misses a significant chunk of the season before the “Major double-header” of the French Open and Wimbledon later this summer. Being Sinner, he might return as if nothing had happened, but being human there is at least the possibility that he will experience some initial difficulties on his return to the ATP Tour and especially at the Majors.

Even more importantly, for all their undoubted greatness it is surely impossible for Sinner and Alcaraz to exert the same vice-like grip on the Majors that The Big Three exerted for so long. The idea that the three greatest male players in tennis history will immediately be followed by two similarly dominant individuals, in Sinner and Alcaraz, is unlikely, to say the least.

Consequently, by virtue of the fact that he has now won the sport’s unofficial “Fifth Major” and, more importantly, beaten all (or almost all) of his biggest rivals en route to that title, while – most importantly of all – showing that he has completely remodelled both his game and his physical and mental fitness suggests that Jack Draper is well on course to winning a Major. It may take a while, but the chances of him doing so at some point over the next few years have increased dramatically as a result of his fortnight in the Californian desert.