Jack Draper Discusses Reasons For Hiring Unusual Member To His Team

"Historically, I had a lot of problems with my sinuses when I was younger, and I suppose in tennis, in sport, we're always trying to look for the small percentages. I've realised over time that of course I need to focus on my physical improvements."

"That's got better, and my physicality and everything has got better, but I felt like still sometimes I would get out of breath, or when I'm a bit anxious, I'd really struggle still."

"So I started to look into more of the other reasons potentially why and one of them was I've always had problems with my sinuses, so could it be that my breathing is maybe non-efficient? I realised that I was a real mouth breather, and so I looked into how I could start to maybe change functionally the way I breathe."

"There are still lots of improvements to come, but I worked a lot on trying to breathe through my diaphragm and my nose instead of breathing through my mouth, because you can't get enough oxygen in that way."

"So especially when we're out on court and we're playing long points and it's hot and stressful, it's just trying to learn how to breathe more efficiently for your body to work at a high level."

"At the end of the day, if you're out of breath, or if you're anxious or stressed, then you have to have ways of being able to calm yourself down. If you can calm yourself down, and if you can stay in the present, you're more able to focus on what you're actually doing, instead of just getting back to feeling okay."

"It's something that I'm just more aware of the whole time. It's like a way of trying to remain present. I think the best players in the world, they're able to be present more of the time than others and not let the winning points and the unforced errors and all that affect them so much."