Leading athlete welfare and injury prevention expert Stephen Smith has shared his insight into the nature of the injury that ended Jack Draper’s 2025 season.
Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs — the world’s leading sports science and data company — also explained why he feels “something needs to change now” for Draper.
Draper announced last month that he would not play again in 2025 due to a bruised humerus – the bone that runs from the shoulder to elbow – in his left arm.
The 23-year-old Brit has revealed he had been suffering with the injury since the clay-court season and that it got “progressively worse.”
“I felt like my arm was shutting down a little bit when I was hitting forehands and on the serve,” Draper explained.
“After the grass, I got it checked out. It is one of those where if you keep playing with it, it could become very, very serious.”
After a surprise second round Wimbledon loss to Marin Cilic, Draper did not play again until the US Open, where he battled to win his opener before pulling out ahead of his second round match.
Draper, who is currently ranked ninth, compiled an excellent 30-9 (76.9%) record this year and reached a career-high ranking of world No 4 in June after an excellent first half of the campaign. He won the biggest title of his career to date at the Indian Wells Masters in March.
In an exclusive interview with Tennis365, Smith shed light on bone bruising and broke down what is involved in the process of returning to competitive action from this type of injury.
“With something like that, sounds like that is some level of repetitive strain. So you’re talking about bruising on joints and bones from a repetitive action, most likely from a combination of serving and forehand, et cetera,” Smith said.
“I think that type of thing, we talk about something like bone bruising from a repetitive motion like that, requires a significant amount of rest because it’s essentially almost like having a fracture. The bone might as well be broken.
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“If you come back out and you keep on pounding those against each other again, they inflame, they become sorer and sorer to the point that you could have something like a stress fracture that would occur there.
“So they’re generally treated like a fracture, you’re talking about at least having six to eight weeks, somewhere in that ballpark of rest and recuperation to allow that bruising to go away.
“But then probably more importantly, the amount of rehabilitation that’s required and potentially the level of biomechanical adjustments that need to be made. Because why was that happening in the first place? What were the stressors that were causing that? Do we need to change the way he moves?
“So I imagine he’s going through a decent period, not just of rest, but of rehabilitation and potentially of reprogramming some of the movements and making sure that they decrease the potential for something like that to happen again.”
Draper’s arm injury adds to a growing list of physical issues he has been afflicted by in his short career to date. He was sidelined for spells in 2023 and 2024 due to abdominal and shoulder injuries, while hip tendinitis disrupted his off-season ahead of the 2025 campaign.
Smith was asked if it concerns him that a player as young as Draper has already suffered from a host of problems with his body.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a sign that there’s something from a management perspective that’s probably missing there,” Smith said.
“Whether it’s having more or less of something, additional strength and conditioning work, adjustments to how he’s being managed through competitions, how is his practice loads being managed.
“Whether it is alterations to his biomechanics and how he plays the game. I think to have the injury history that he’s had at the age that he’s had probably needs to be cognisant of the fact that something needs to change now, or he’ll end up having a career that’s cut short.
“Think of someone like Juan Martin del Potro, incredible talent, with probably one of the most powerful forehands we’ve ever seen in the game, but his greatest strength ultimately ended up being one of his biggest issues. Had all of those wrist issues, had lots of surgeries on it because that wasn’t nipped in the bud.”
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