Jack Draper has revealed the nature of the injury which has kept him out since Wimbledon and admitted it is still troubling him as he begins his US Open campaign.
The world No 5 has not been seen in singles action since losing in the second round of Wimbledon to Marin Cilic. And on Saturday in New York he explained what has been troubling him.
‘It was something I was playing through for a while,’ said the 23-year-old, who faces Argentine qualifier Federico Agustin Gomez on Monday. ‘I started feeling it in the clay season. I felt like my arm was shutting down a little bit when I was hitting forehands and on the serve. It got progressively worse, then on the grass it got quite painful.
‘I got it checked out and I had some bone stress, bone bruising, in my humerus on my left side. It is one of those where if you keep playing with it, it could become very, very serious. So I had to take some time out.’
Draper was adamant that the arm pain was not a factor in his defeat at the hands of 36-year-old Cilic, but it is difficult to see how it could not have played some part.
The only cure for the injury is rest – not something that is easy to come by in the helter-skelter tennis season. Draper went two weeks without hitting groundstrokes and a month without hitting serves but he was never going to miss what has been by far his most productive Grand Slam.
Asked if he is still managing some pain this fortnight, he replied: ‘It’s an injury which takes time to heal. It might be giving me some discomfort, that’s for sure, but I’m going to go out on Monday and feel like it’s holding me back at all.’
The good news is that Draper’s early draw is kind enough that he should have space to play his way into the tournament. Looming in the quarter-finals, though, is his good friend Jannik Sinner, the man who beat him in the semis last year en-route to the title.
Once again, Draper goes into a tournament on a mission to close the gap to the all-powerful duo of Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
‘Their level is definitely above the rest of us right now,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’m very happy for them because they’re both amazing guys, I know them well. But I don’t want to feel like we’re just letting them do it. I want to keep on going after them, keep on improving, and hopefully soon I’ll be competing with them.’
