Jack Draper is, as far as I'm aware, the only man to have ever performed a body-popping routine on a Wimbledon show court. The occasion was the 2018 boys singles final, and it was the first time I saw. Draper - then a slim, rangy 16-year-old - strike a tennis ball. Naturally right-handed, he played as a leftie and seemed to crush forehands off both sides. But it was his swagger that stayed with me, and probably many of the 10,000 spectators on Wimbledon's Court One. He didn't win the title, against Taiwanese top seed Tseng Chun-hsin, but the body-popping - busted out after Draper theatrically saved a match point - suggested he was very much at home at the world's most famous tennis tournament. "I saw a video of that the other day, and half of me was cringing, and then the other half was like, 'You know what! It was amazing, because I was just very free, and I was really enjoying the moment," recalls Draper, when we speak in May. It is the day after he was photographed in a Burberry car coat with some nonplussed-looking waterfowl for this issue. Back to Junior Wimbledon 2018: "It's weird, because I'm not like that at all in any way. Maybe I am, maybe I lost that over time, I don't know. But it was nice to see it. At that point, I felt amazing about a lot of things and that showed out on the court." — Esquire UK July - August 2026
God please bring the happy and free jack back to us🥲
