{"id":643706,"date":"2026-06-17T15:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643706\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:03:08","slug":"andy-murray-backs-jack-draper-for-wimbledon-return-hes-bloody-good-jack-draper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643706\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Murray backs Jack Draper for Wimbledon return: \u2018He\u2019s bloody good\u2019 | Jack Draper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Andy Murray<\/a> has issued a bullish bulletin on the fitness and ability of Jack Draper before Wimbledon, revealing that he has been practising on court most days and hailing his tennis as \u201cbloody good\u201d.<\/p>\n

Draper has plummeted to No 113 in the world due to a series of injuries, having been ranked fourth last year, and has not played since the Barcelona Open in April. But Murray, who has been working with the British player for the last month at the LTA\u2019s National Tennis<\/a> Centre as an adviser and temporary coach, believes that his body is now on the mend.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack is supposed to be playing in Eastbourne next week,\u201d Murray said at Queen\u2019s Club. \u201cHe\u2019s been training and getting ready for that. He\u2019s been on the court most days for the last few weeks.<\/p>\n

Sir Andy Murray has been working with Jack Draper for the past month at the LTA\u2019s National Tennis Centre as an advisor and temporary coach. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cHis tennis is bloody good. He\u2019s really good. Obviously he\u2019s had lots of issues the last year with various injuries. I feel like he\u2019s starting to come out the other side of that now. The next step is getting on the match court and getting a consistent run of tournaments and weeks under him and building trust again in his body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Draper has had knee and elbow problems, while his latest setback has been caused by an issue with his serving shoulder. However, Murray says he has been surprised by the quality of Draper\u2019s play in the sessions they have done together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to spend a decent amount of time with Jack,\u201d said Murray. \u201cI also believe a lot in his tennis. In the sessions I\u2019ve done with him, I\u2019ve been more impressed probably than what I expected. And I thought he was bloody good before I started helping him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a quick learner. He\u2019s got very few holes in his game. He\u2019s a more complete player than probably what I expected as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray confirmed that while his partnership with Draper could continue for the build up to the US Open, his priority is being at home for his family. \u201cI really like Jack, and I wanted to help him when he asked if I could,\u201d said Murray, who retired after the Paris Olympics in 2024 and then coached Novak Djokovic for four months at the start of 2025. \u201cBut I was quite clear about what I could and couldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still want to be able to pick my kids up from school, drop them off at home,\u201d he added. \u201cIf that wasn\u2019t something that worked for him, then that was also absolutely fine. But I said I\u2019d still love to help you if you would like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s asked for me to help him over this next period. I\u2019ve enjoyed being on court with him. We\u2019ll see how the next few weeks pan out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray is yet to coach Draper from courtside in a match but insisted that he had no problems being in that role when working with Djokovic. \u201cI didn\u2019t find it weird when I was watching matches with Novak,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buildup to the matches and stuff I found quite hard. Because you need to get your communication with the player right. Making sure you\u2019ve got the right courts booked, practice partners, balls, rackets, strategy. All of those sorts of things. You want that to go smoothly. And then once the player is out on the court, I found it quite easy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Andy Murray has issued a bullish bulletin on the fitness and ability of Jack Draper before Wimbledon,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-643706","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\/643706","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=643706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}