Jack Draper has revealed he played through the pain barrier with a left arm injury at Wimbledon. Last year’s US Open semi-finalist went out in the second round of his home Grand Slam and has not played a singles match since. The world No.5 said he went a month without hitting a serve to recover but the left-hander claimed he is now fit to compete at Flushing Meadows.
“It was something I was playing through for a while,” said the British No.1. “I first started feeling it probably towards the middle of the clay season. I felt like my arm was shutting down a little bit when I was hitting forehands and on the serve, as well. It got progressively a bit worse. Then on the grass it got quite painful. It didn’t affect the way I performed.
“It was painful at times, but it wasn’t something I was thinking: ‘Oh, this is really holding me back’. “After the grass, I got it checked out. I had some bone stress, bone bruising, in my humerus on my left side. It is one of those where if you keep playing with it, it could become very, very serious. So I had to take some time out.
“I didn’t hit any serves for about a month. Then groundies, I was able to hit after maybe two-and-a-half weeks. It’s an injury which takes time to heal. It might be giving me some discomfort, that’s for sure. It’s not something which I’m going to go out on Monday and feel like it’s holding me back at all.”
Draper, who will face Argentine qualifier Federico Agustin Gomez on Monday, returned to action playing the new mixed doubles event at the US Open. Playing with Jessica Pegula, the Anglo-American partnership beat Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz in the opening round before losing in the semi-finals.
And Draper claimed it was a good warm-up for his latest tilt at a Grand Slam title after his layoff. “It was kind of perfect for me, because I hadn’t had any competition, I hadn’t felt that feeling of sort of playing in front of people and that sort of stuff for a little while,” he said.
“In tennis, having a month and a half out is quite a long time. I think for me it was almost really positive compared to some of the other players, too.
“I kind of liked it, how it sort of got you sharp, got you playing points with ball boys and line judges and the crowd. I think it was a really positive experience for myself, and I definitely feel a lot sharper having, you know, played that as opposed to maybe having a training week.”
