Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about Jack Draper’s ongoing struggle with an arm injury.
Draper has been suffering from a bruised humerus in his left arm for over a year, while he was also sidelined during this year’s clay-court season due to a right knee problem.
The British star has played just 16 matches since his second round defeat to Marin Cilic at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships over 13 months ago. He reached his career-high ranking of world No 4 in June last year after an excellent first half of the 2025 season, but he is currently ranked 143rd.
Earlier this month, Draper made his latest comeback at the Canadian Open, where he lost to Terence Atmane in the opening round.
In the third set of that defeat, Draper’s serve speed dropped significantly, and he broke down in tears during a changeover when trailing 1-4.
The 24-year-old was then beaten 6-3, 7-5 by Martin Landaluce in the first round of the Cincinnati Open on Thursday.
Draper was unable to convert six set points in the second set as he lost the last five games after leading 5-2.
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In an exclusive interview, Tennis365 asked Smith – who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, the world’s leading sports science and performance intelligence company – whether it is common for a bone bruising injury to persist for so long.
“I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon,” said Smith.
“What we saw at the Canadian Open was genuinely difficult to watch. He’s been navigating that bone bruising injury in his left arm for a significant period, and bone bruising is notoriously slow to resolve.
“What would happen if you keep overloading that is it could end up resulting in a stress fracture, as well. You can’t accelerate that biological process too much. You manage your load around it.
“The drop in his serve speed during the match, they were pretty visible data points that he was having an issue.
“When a player’s serve speed falls that much from their baseline, that’s a flag that something is limiting their ability to generate force through the kinetic chain.
“So, for his comeback to continue, I think the priority has to be honest load monitoring — not just how the arms feel day to day.
“I think there would need to be very, very serious quantification of load, and not just time on court, but the actual physical demands — speeds, impacts, changes of direction, racket speed.”
Draper missed over five months before returning to the tour in February, and Smith explained why more rest may not be the solution to his arm injury woes.
“Even rest alone doesn’t solve these things. Okay, the symptoms might resolve, but then you go straight back out there and you go from 0 to 100 miles an hour in terms of the demands that are placed on you — and that’s what’s causing some of this,” Smith said.
“There needs to be a steady physiological base that’s there. It’s not just about load management, it’s actually about that interaction between load and response.”
Asked if the psychological challenge of trying to come back from injuries is underappreciated, Smith said: “Massively. It’s so hard.
“Especially in an individual sport. In a team sport like football or rugby, there’s potentially areas where the camera’s not on you, and you can potentially get a break.
“It’s just a different dynamic. And they know. They know what it feels like. They’re top tier athletes, and they know exactly what it feels like to be at the peak of their game, and they know when they’re hurting, they know when they’re struggling, they know when they’re not able to do the things they normally do.
“And when you get injured and you spend months building back up to that, and you come back out and you’re ready to go, and it doesn’t feel right… yeah, that’s hard.”
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