From working with Sam Stosur and John Millman to now Rinky Hijikata and Adam Walton, Mark Draper has been a key figure in guiding Australia’s professional tennis stars – a career that has spanned more than 20 years.
On this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast, the Tennis Australia National Academy coach shared why he is committed to developing local talent.
“I really love tennis and I love coaching. I love to try and give back to the people who are trying to get the best out of themselves,” he said.
“It’s a great job and it’s an opportunity to give back some of my experience to those that are still upcoming.”
Since working with Draper, Hijikata earned a career-high singles ranking of world No.62 and reached the fourth round at the 2023 US Open, plus won the Australian Open 2023 men’s doubles title with Jason Kubler.
Walton enjoyed his best year on tour in 2025 as he rose to a career-best ranking of world No.74, then earned a top-10 victory over Daniil Medvedev at Roland Garros earlier this year.
"I think both boys are really good at turning up and giving the best of themselves on a daily basis, which is a hard thing to do,” Draper explained.
“It’s always just small margins that separate your ranking from being 80 or 90 to 40 or 50, so we have just got to keep trying to explore what those narrow margins are and keep working towards improving every single year.”
Interestingly, Draper’s route to coaching wasn’t by choice, but rather due to necessity as a way to fund his professional career.
“I was kind of doing it all, some high-performance stuff and then playing tournaments as well and trying to earn some money from some of the Australian Money Tournaments that were going on back then,” he said.
“Then it was just about saving up a little nest egg of money and then getting away for a period of time.
“I was even thinking about giving [my playing career] up because it was difficult to keep going through this process of saving money, trying to get some results going, coming back and doing the whole thing again, but then I started to get some results at about 22, 23 and was doing well enough to stay away for most of the year and get something going.”
Draper would go on to qualify for main draws at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 1998, even securing a first-round win at the All-England Club that year against No.4 seed Greg Rusedski.
“It was nerve wracking for sure. I was extremely nervous leading into that match, but once a few balls were hit in the warm up I felt pretty comfortable,” Draper recalled.
Draper believes that because he was coaching regularly at a young age, it was a good foundation for developing different styles of coaching.
That coaching approach was also informed by Australian tennis legend Mal Anderson, whom Draper cites as an inspiration dating back to when he was a child developing his game at Anderson’s tennis centre in Queensland.
“I always really valued his humility and personal qualities. He was very generous as well,” Draper explained.
“Mal gave me a bit more ownership of what I was wanting to do on the tennis court. I suppose philosophically that’s now how I prefer to coach, just let the player get involved as much as possible.”
What started as a means to an end would go on to shape the trajectory of Draper's tennis journey, ultimately becoming one of the country’s leading coaches.
“I know how difficult it is to try and make it when you’re trying to do it by yourself,” he said, “so given the opportunity to work here with Tennis Australia I’m so appreciative and grateful every single day to have a role where I can work with such great people and share ideas.”
Listen to the full episode of The Sit-Down, a weekly podcast released each Monday featuring an in-depth interview with a notable tennis identity. Subscribe in your favourite podcast player so you never miss an episode.