{"id":442209,"date":"2026-02-24T02:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442209\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T02:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:17:21","slug":"jack-draper-wins-on-long-awaited-atp-tour-return-after-six-month-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442209\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Draper wins on long-awaited ATP Tour return after six-month absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Draper shed his hair and an understandable amount of rust on his long-awaited comeback to the ATP Tour after six months out with injury.<\/p>\n

The British No1 defeated Quentin Halys, the world No68, 7-6 (10-8) 6-3 in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships, and while the 29-year-old Frenchman initially proved a surprisingly resilient opponent, a dominant second set showed plenty of encouraging signs that Draper<\/a> can return to the form that propelled him to No4 in the world before too long.<\/p>\n

After claiming the biggest title of his career at Indian Wells just under a year ago, Draper\u2019s quest to break the duopoly of Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a> was put on hold by a complex long-term bone bruise in his upper left arm that proved more difficult to navigate than first anticipated.<\/p>\n

\"Britain's<\/p>\n

Draper\u2019s mission to challenge the duopoly of Sinner and Alcaraz hit a wall after picking up a bruised bone in his arm<\/p>\n

RULA ROUHANA\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

Armed with a new service motion, a new coach and a sharp buzzcut in place of his blonde highlights, the 24-year-old was inevitably not at his fluid best, but he still demonstrated ample class and grit when rising in the key moments, staving off two set points in the first set with an ace at 5-4 and then a magnificent backhand drop shot in a long and tense tie break. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels so good to be out here competing in front of people. I had a tough opponent, he\u2019s tricky, he served great. It could have been cleaner from my side, but I haven\u2019t played in a long time on the Tour so I\u2019m really proud of how I came out today. Hopefully I can go from strength to strength,\u201d Draper, who will face either Fabian Marozsan or Arthur Rinderknech in the second round, said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been craving the feeling of competing for a very long time. It felt normal. It felt like coming back to doing what I love. The adrenalin of winning and losing points. There\u2019s been a lot of down moments over the past eight months. It\u2019s not been easy. To be back here; that\u2019s something I\u2019m really proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Britain's<\/p>\n

The British player displayed a change to his service style from a pinpoint to a platform stance<\/p>\n

RAGHED WAKED\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

Draper\u2019s potent serve was always key to his success, but his injury, which first emerged during Wimbledon<\/a> last year, caused him to switch from a pinpoint stance, where a player starts with their feet apart but then brings the back foot forward during the service motion, to a platform stance, where the feet remain apart throughout, to lessen the strain on his arm. As a result, his serve was not as quick as at Indian Wells, where he averaged 126mph last year, but Draper still regularly tipped 120mph while making 69 per cent of his first serves, including 13 aces.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy serve was always a good shot, but it could have been more consistent. It is something I\u2019ve looked at, not only the mechanics \u2014 in 2023 I had a pec injury, last year the bone injury. I\u2019m always looking to get better. I\u2019ve hit a shitload of serves in the past eight months,\u201d Draper said. <\/p>\n

\"Britain's<\/p>\n

Draper, with a new look, said \u201cthere\u2019s been a lot of down moments over the past eight months\u201d<\/p>\n

RULA ROUHANA\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

Jamie Delgado has overseen that change since replacing James Trotman in October. A longer bedding-in period with the former, who is best known for his work with Andy Murray<\/a> after helping guide him to a second Wimbledon title and the world No1 ranking in 2016, could ultimately prove beneficial with Draper using the long break to reassess all facets of his game.<\/p>\n

Although he made his official return in a Davis Cup qualifier a fortnight ago, Halys was a far superior calibre of opponent to Norway\u2019s Viktor Durasovic and capitalised on Draper\u2019s errant forehand while serving brilliantly himself. <\/p>\n

After staving off a third break point of the set at 5-4, Draper had taken firm control of the tie-break at 5-2 but Halys then won five of the next six points to serve for the set again. Draper\u2019s deft drop shot proved the decisive blow after a scrutinising hour\u2019s test and the second set was formality as he found his rhythm and routinely bludgeoned forehands of old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Draper shed his hair and an understandable amount of rust on his long-awaited comeback to the ATP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-442209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}