Leading athlete welfare and injury prevention expert Stephen Smith has shared his insight into the nature of the injury that ended Jack Draper\u2019s 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs \u2014 the world\u2019s leading sports science and data company \u2014 also explained why he feels \u201csomething needs to change now\u201d for Draper.<\/p>\n
Draper<\/a> announced last month that he would not play again in 2025 due to a bruised humerus \u2013 the bone that runs from the shoulder to elbow \u2013 in his left arm.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old Brit has revealed he had been suffering with the injury since the clay-court season and that it got \u201cprogressively worse.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like my arm was shutting down a little bit when I was hitting forehands and on the serve,\u201d Draper explained.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWith something like that, sounds like that is some level of repetitive strain. So you\u2019re talking about bruising on joints and bones from a repetitive action, most likely from a combination of serving and forehand, et cetera,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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\u2019s essentially almost like having a fracture. The bone might as well be broken.<\/p>\n Jack Draper gets backing in Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner Grand Slam debate<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Can tennis stars manage the schedule better after Carlos Alcaraz injury setback? Leading expert reveals<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIf 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.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they\u2019re generally treated like a fracture, you\u2019re talking about at least having six to eight weeks, somewhere in that ballpark of rest and recuperation to allow that bruising to go away.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then probably more importantly, the amount of rehabilitation that\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n \u201cSo I imagine he\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Draper\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, absolutely. I think it\u2019s a sign that there\u2019s something from a management perspective that\u2019s probably missing there,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s having more or less of something, additional strength and conditioning work, adjustments to how he\u2019s being managed through competitions, how is his practice loads being managed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it is alterations to his biomechanics and how he plays the game. I think to have the injury history that he\u2019s had at the age that he\u2019s had probably needs to be cognisant of the fact that something needs to change now, or he\u2019ll end up having a career that\u2019s cut short.<\/p>\n \u201cThink of someone like Juan Martin del Potro, incredible talent, with probably one of the most powerful forehands we\u2019ve 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\u2019t nipped in the bud.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Jack Draper reveals comeback event and he could be set for a huge cash windfall<\/a> The post Why Jack Draper \u2018needs to change something\u2019 as injury expert issues Juan Martin del Potro warning<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading athlete welfare and injury prevention expert Stephen Smith has shared his insight into the nature of the injury that ended Jack Draper\u2019s 2025 season. Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs \u2014 the world\u2019s leading sports science and data company \u2014 also explained why he feels \u201csomething needs to change now\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Exclusive Interviews<\/h2>\n
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