Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has praised Jack Draper for his \u201cmeasured\u201d and \u201cmeticulous\u201d approach to his recovery from injury ahead of his long-awaited comeback.<\/p>\n
Draper<\/a> has not played since he withdrew from his second round match at the 2025 US Open in August due to a bruised humerus \u2013 the bone that runs from the shoulder to the elbow \u2013 in his left arm. He revealed that he had been suffering with the injury since the clay-court season and that it had gotten \u201cprogressively worse.\u201d<\/p>\n The world No 13, who reached his career-high ranking of world No 4 in June last year, is set to make his return to action in Great Britain\u2019s Davis Cup Qualifiers tie against Norway in Oslo later this week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time since I was able to compete,\u201d Draper told the ITF at the LTA\u2019s National Tennis Centre. \u201cBut I\u2019ve stayed in a good place, even though it\u2019s been tricky \u2013 lots of dark moments, lots of tough times \u2013 but that\u2019s the sport I signed up for.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always learning, always growing and happy to be back playing again.\u201d<\/p>\n Draper was initially due to make his comeback at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown exhibition event in London in December, but he pulled out.<\/p>\n The 24-year-old then chose to postpone his return to competition further by withdrawing from the United Cup and the Australian Open.<\/p>\n In an exclusive interview with Tennis365,\u00a0Smith backed Draper\u2019s decision not to compete at the year\u2019s first Grand Slam.<\/p>\n \u201cJack Draper pulling out of the Australian Open, I think it\u2019s really smart decision-making for him,\u201d Smith assessed.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of his commentary was that, going into the number of matches at the intensity level that would be required at the Australian Open just wouldn\u2019t be the smartest thing for him and his team to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if the length of Draper\u2019s absence and the delays to his comeback are concerning, Smith took the opposing view.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I think everything that you\u2019re hearing from him and from his camp is that they understand the gravity of the issue, hence that\u2019s why he wasn\u2019t involved in the Australian Open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re suggesting that they\u2019re looking at a much more gradual return to performance for him.<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz criticised for not mentioning Ferrero after Australian Open win by Toni Nadal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Leading expert reveals risks of Australian Open night matches after Daniil Medvedev\u2019s call for change<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTo me, from everything I\u2019ve heard, they\u2019ve never been unsure about what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019ve been very confident in their decision-making, they\u2019ve been very measured in their decision-making.<\/p>\n \u201cI would take a lot of confidence from that because it sounds like they had a very meticulous and detailed plan, and regardless of how important the Australian Open is, they weren\u2019t willing to risk it because they understand the pros and cons of that.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I would look at that (the lengthy period taken for Draper to return) from the complete opposite lens.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith went on to address whether Draper will need to manage his schedule throughout 2026 to minimise the risk of a recurrence of the injury.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I would expect that they\u2019re probably going to manage him throughout the year and make sure that they\u2019re going to be assessing him after every competition and between games, and ensuring that he\u2019s not having any negative response,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019ll be adjusting his plan based off how his body is responding, which is exactly what you would expect them to do from a best practice perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Rotterdam Open entry list, prize money, ranking points, key dates: Zverev & Draper to star in Alcaraz\u2019s absence<\/a> The post Jack Draper skipping Australian Open was \u2018smart decision\u2019 \u2013 leading injury expert ahead of Brit\u2019s comeback<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has praised Jack Draper for his \u201cmeasured\u201d and \u201cmeticulous\u201d approach to his recovery from injury ahead of his long-awaited comeback. Draper has not played since he withdrew from his second round match at the 2025 US Open in August due to a bruised humerus \u2013 the […]<\/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-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708","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=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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