Jack Draper Defends Serious Approach to US Open Mixed Doubles After Criticism

Jack Draper isn’t backing down from the criticism he’s been getting for taking the new mixed doubles event at the 2025 US Open way too seriously.

The mixed doubles tournament kicked off in New York on Tuesday, and it’s been pretty controversial from the start.

Most of the field is made up of top singles players who’ve never played doubles together. Only one actual doubles team — Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori — is even competing.

That’s got a lot of people treating it like an exhibition match. Carlos Alcaraz has been pretty open about wanting to use the event just as practice, which got him in hot water with fans too.

But Alcaraz didn’t get much practice time.

In the first round, he and Emma Raducanu ran into Draper and Jessica Pegula. The British-American duo crushed them 4-2, 4-2 in straight sets.

The event uses a weird format where it’s best-of-three sets, but each set is first-to-four games.

Draper was absolutely the best player on that court. And he definitely wasn’t holding back — he was firing balls right at Raducanu when he needed to win points.

The guy was clearly locked in and taking this thing seriously.

Draper keeps the intensity going

In the second round, Draper didn’t change his approach one bit. He and Pegula beat Mirra Andreeva and Daniil Medvedev even more convincingly, 4-1, 4-1.

Both Draper and Pegula were playing like this was a real tournament, not some casual exhibition.

That’s when the criticism really started flying. Fans were not impressed that Draper was treating what they saw as a fun exhibition like it was Wimbledon finals.

But Draper doesn’t see the problem with being competitive, even if he admits it’s kind of an exhibition format.

"Yeah, it would mean a lot. Obviously it is like a bit of an exhibition format. It’s nice to play with someone. Have a bit of fun with it. I don’t know. I like winning. It’s good to win, right? I’m hearing that a lot, it’s a bit of an exhibition, a bit of fun, why am I so locked in. It’s a good opportunity to play, do well, get a lot of points in before next week, yeah. Like, I’m enjoying being locked in. I don’t know why it’s a crime to be locked in."

Perfect partnership of introverts

Draper and Pegula barely knew each other before this tournament started. But they figured out pretty quickly why they work so well together.

They’re both antisocial.

"We’re both the same a little bit. I’ve seen you around before. She is always locked in, got her headphones in. I’m the same. I don’t think we like people. We don’t talk to them (smiling). When we’re around the tour, yeah, I just see her locked in on her headphones."

Pegula confirmed that the headphones are basically her way of avoiding conversations she doesn’t want to have.

"That’s one thing you said. I was like, How do you… He’s like, I’ve seen you just always with your headphones on. I’m like, Yeah, because I don’t want to talk to anybody (laughter)."

Their "don’t talk to people" strategy seems to be working pretty well on the court too.

Now they’re heading into the semifinals, where they’ll face Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud for a spot in the final.

Based on how locked in they’ve been so far, you can bet they’ll be taking that match pretty seriously too.