{"id":2633,"date":"2026-08-14T16:30:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:30:28","slug":"jack-draper-gets-honest-verdict-from-leading-injury-expert-after-cincinnati-open-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2633","title":{"rendered":"Jack Draper gets honest verdict from leading injury expert after Cincinnati Open exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about Jack Draper<\/a>\u2019s ongoing struggle with an arm injury.<\/p>\n

Draper<\/a> has been suffering from a bruised humerus in his left arm for over a year, while he was also sidelined during this year\u2019s clay-court season due to a right knee problem.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Draper made his latest comeback at the Canadian Open, where he lost to Terence Atmane in the opening round.<\/p>\n

In the third set of that defeat, Draper\u2019s serve speed dropped significantly, and he broke down in tears during a changeover when trailing 1-4.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old was then beaten 6-3, 7-5 by Martin Landaluce in the first round of the Cincinnati Open on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Draper was unable to convert six set points in the second set as he lost the last five games after leading 5-2.<\/p>\n

ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n

Jack Draper\u2019s agony continues in Cincinnati as questions asked over his next move<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Alexander Zverev reveals \u2018easy fix\u2019 to \u2018sad reality\u2019 of Canadian Open and Cincinnati withdrawals<\/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

In an exclusive interview, Tennis365 asked Smith \u2013 who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, the world\u2019s leading sports science and performance intelligence company \u2013 whether it is common for a bone bruising injury to persist for so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s uncommon,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we saw at the Canadian Open was genuinely difficult to watch. He\u2019s been navigating that bone bruising injury in his left arm for a significant period, and bone bruising is notoriously slow to resolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would happen if you keep overloading that is it could end up resulting in a stress fracture, as well. You can\u2019t accelerate that biological process too much. You manage your load around it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drop in his serve speed during the match, they were pretty visible data points that he was having an issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a player\u2019s serve speed falls that much from their baseline, that\u2019s a flag that something is limiting their ability to generate force through the kinetic chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for his comeback to continue, I think the priority has to be honest load monitoring \u2014 not just how the arms feel day to day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there would need to be very, very serious quantification of load, and not just time on court, but the actual physical demands \u2014 speeds, impacts, changes of direction, racket speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven rest alone doesn\u2019t 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 \u2014 and that\u2019s what\u2019s causing some of this,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be a steady physiological base that\u2019s there. It\u2019s not just about load management, it\u2019s actually about that interaction between load and response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the psychological challenge of trying to come back from injuries is underappreciated, Smith said: \u201cMassively. It\u2019s so hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in an individual sport. In a team sport like football or rugby, there\u2019s potentially areas where the camera\u2019s not on you, and you can potentially get a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a different dynamic. And they know. They know what it feels like. They\u2019re top tier athletes, and they know exactly what it feels like to be at the peak of their game, and they know when they\u2019re hurting, they know when they\u2019re struggling, they know when they\u2019re not able to do the things they normally do.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when you get injured and you spend months building back up to that, and you come back out and you\u2019re ready to go, and it doesn\u2019t feel right\u2026 yeah, that\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Exclusive: Will Carlos Alcaraz play the US Open? Leading injury expert \u2018would be shocked\u2019<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Jack Draper gets honest verdict from leading injury expert after Cincinnati Open exit<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about Jack Draper\u2019s 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\u2019s clay-court season due to a right knee problem. 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-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","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=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}