Norrie replaces Draper as British number one – but for how long?

Cameron Norrie has replaced Jack Draper as the British men’s number one – but it is a position which could change hands several times this year.

Both players lost in the Indian Wells quarter-finals last week, and Draper – who was defending the title and 1,000 ranking points to boot – has fallen 12 places to 26th in the world as a consequence.

Norrie, meanwhile, has climbed five spots to 24th to become British number one for the second time in his career.

“It’s a nice thing, obviously, but I’m not really thinking about that too much,” Norrie, 30, told BBC Sport.

He was impressed that Draper, working his way back to full sharpness after a long arm injury lay-off, managed to reach the last eight in Indian Wells.

Draper defeated Novak Djokovic along the way before losing to Daniil Medvedev.

“It’s unfortunate Jack’s been out with injury but I just want to say that was extremely impressive – his second tournament back and he’s already competing at that level,” Norrie said.

“I don’t think there’s too many players that can do that. I was out with injury for three or four months and it took me four or five tournaments to really start feeling OK.

There are just 43 points and two places between Norrie and Draper in the rankings.

Neither has a good record at the Miami Open, which starts later this week, and they have virtually no points to defend there from last year.

Draper could retake pole position immediately if he goes at least a round further than Norrie in Florida.

After that, the pendulum may swing Norrie’s way, as Draper had impressive results during last year’s European clay-court swing, including a run to the Madrid final and the quarter-finals in Rome.

After Wimbledon, though, Draper has only 50 points to defend for the rest of the year, and so will have the chance to gain ground rapidly.

Of more pressing concern to Draper will be whether his ranking can stay high enough for him to be among the seeds for May’s French Open.

With all those clay-court ranking points to defend, Draper will have to play very well to be among the top 32 seeds in Paris.

Draper had been British number one since June 2024 when he took over from Norrie, who had held the position since October 2021 when he won Indian Wells.

The 24-year-old has only played two ranking tournaments since last August’s US Open, having returned from injury in February.

Before the injury, Draper was steadily building his way to the top of the game.

He reached the 2024 US Open semi-finals, won the biggest title of his career at Indian Wells six months later and reached as high as fourth in the world rankings in June.

The friendly British rivalry with Norrie could help to nudge him back towards the top 10.

“Cam is playing some great tennis,” Draper said.

“He’s been really consistent. I think it’s great for British tennis that he’s back playing really well – a former top-10 player who had a really tough injury with his forearm a couple of years ago.

“I’m really happy for him and his team and if we can keep on pushing each other to play well, that’s only a great thing.”

Rankings are calculated over a 12-month period, with players effectively defending points they won at the same tournament a year earlier.

Draper’s absence from the tour is the overriding reason why he has lost the British top spot, but Norrie has had an excellent run after falling outside the top 90 in April.

He reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals in July and beat world number one Carlos Alcaraz at the Paris Masters in October.