Jack Draper has admitted that the pressure of pushing himself to challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner may have contributed to his body breaking down last year.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old made his long-awaited return from a bone stress injury in his left arm in Great Britain\u2019s 4-0 Davis Cup Qualifiers win against Norway in Oslo.<\/p>\n
Draper<\/a> cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win against world No 313 Viktor Durasovic on Thursday in his first match since an opening round win at the US Open on 25 August.<\/p>\n The Brit is ranked 13th in the world, having reached his career-high position of world No 4 in June last year after a superb first half of the 2025 season. Draper defeated Carlos Alcaraz en route to winning his biggest title to date in Indian Wells in March.<\/p>\n Speaking to the Press Association, Draper spoke candidly about the demands of trying to close the gap to Alcaraz and Sinner \u2014 who have won the last nine majors between them.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was my goal anyway, and potentially that\u2019s part of the reason why my body did break down,\u201d said Draper.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe I was trying so hard to play in the right way \u2014 to hit the ball harder, to get free points \u2014 and that just became a stress for me.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve learnt a lot about myself mentally and physically. I\u2019ve done a lot of things that have really put me in a good place.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure, those guys are leading the sport at the moment, and I\u2019m really hungry to get to where they are, so I\u2019m going to do everything I can to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Draper continued: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want any tennis player to go through this with their playing arm.<\/p>\n \u201cBut at the same time, I\u2019ve learnt many things through this period \u2014 not only personally, but from a career perspective \u2014 that are definitely going to help me move forward and be a better player.<\/p>\n Jack Draper skipping Australian Open was \u2018smart decision\u2019 \u2013 leading injury expert ahead of Brit\u2019s comeback<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Jack Draper makes an emotional confession as he returns after an absence of 164 days<\/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 \u201cI do believe I\u2019m a better player than I was in the summer, when I was winning a lot and playing great.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that you can only get to that point with the right mindset and by seeing this injury and this lay-off as an opportunity to improve, and I feel I\u2019ve done that.\u201d<\/p>\n Following his win against Durasovic, Draper shed light on the nature of his arm injury as he addressed how he was feeling after his comeback.<\/p>\n \u201cBone stress is a difficult injury to explain to people who don\u2019t understand it,\u201d he told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, the bone has to keep on regenerating and getting stronger.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more I compete, the more I play at 100%, it\u2019s going to get used to that load over time. It\u2019s natural to feel some sensations, some discomfort over a period of time.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s been like for many other players who have had the same injury, but you just have to keep on adjusting, being sensible with the injury.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I wouldn\u2019t be out here competing if it wasn\u2019t something that I feel confident that I can stay on court with.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Player who could beat Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner named by former Wimbledon champion<\/a> The post Jack Draper makes claim about Carlos Alcaraz & Jannik Sinner causing his body to \u2018break down\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jack Draper has admitted that the pressure of pushing himself to challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner may have contributed to his body breaking down last year. The 24-year-old made his long-awaited return from a bone stress injury in his left arm in Great Britain\u2019s 4-0 Davis Cup Qualifiers win against Norway in Oslo. Draper […]<\/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-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","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=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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