Draper\u2019s elbow sounds considerably more complicated. Yes, scans did show bone bruising on the end of his humerus \u2013 the big bone that runs from the elbow to the shoulder \u2013 when his initial pain was checked out last summer. But he is evidently not receiving such clear diagnoses anymore, because he keeps trying \u2013 and failing \u2013 to play tournaments. In the last 18 months, he has moved from the acute injury phase to something more chronic.<\/p>\n
In that same Sky Sports interview in Montreal, Draper explained that \u201cit\u2019s important for people to recognise that the injury I have is very complex, it\u2019s very complicated and everyone around me is doing everything we can to help this keep moving along\u201d.<\/p>\n
He then added: \u201cIt\u2019s also just getting the right load, getting the right intensity\u2026 so I can hopefully get to the point where I do make that breakthrough.\u201d<\/p>\n
While we may not have access to Draper\u2019s medical records, these quotes suggest that he has reached that grey area where pain is a constant companion, but clear resolutions feel far away.<\/p>\n
From what we know, it seems likely that his elbow hurts like the blazes when he tries to play matches, but that he also cannot pinpoint a single reason or a procedure that will resolve the issue. He keeps trying to work harder and harder in training, to reach a point where the elbow is sturdy enough to deal with tournaments, and he keeps feeling as though he is making progress. But you cannot simulate the stress and unpredictability of matchplay on the practice court, and as soon as he goes out on the ATP Tour, the problem flares up again.<\/p>\n
There are supporting factors that could have brought us to this pass.<\/p>\n
Professional tennis is more arduous than it has ever been, owing to the ongoing arms race in hitting power and physical fitness as well as the expanded two-week Masters 1000 events.Tennis balls are generally accepted to have become heavier \u2013 at least, if you believe what the players say \u2013 which may have contributed to a rash of arm and shoulder injuries, such as the wrist problem that has kept Carlos Alcaraz off the tour since mid-April. This could be because today\u2019s monstrous hitters would smash lighter balls for winners too easily.Draper has always been a ferociously hard worker, to the point where he may sometimes be in danger of overtraining. His early coach, Ryan Jones, was also a tough taskmaster who prioritised high volumes.Draper has an unusually hefty frame for a sport in which mobility is even more important than strength. His ATP profile suggests that he weighs about 13 and a half stone, whereas Andy Murray, his coach, used to come in at under 13st despite being about the same 6ft 4in stature.Draper is an intense character who wants to beat the best players. In the context of his career ambitions, he has struggled to accept the need to rest this serious injury. As a result, he has made four separate attempts to return to the tour over the past year, when hindsight suggests that he would have been better off taking a more extended break.<\/p>\n
Draper\u2019s aggressive game style \u2013 which has echoes of another injury-plagued left-hander in Rafael Nadal \u2013 is always going to place huge demands on his body. But we should also note that when you are dealing with chronic pain \u2013 especially pain which defies conventional medical solutions \u2013 there are other, more holistic variables at play.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a clinician, you have to understand the person and their whole life to make sense of their pain,\u201d said Richmond Stace, a physio who specialises in these sorts of complex cases. \u201cBecause the bulk of dealing with pain is about meeting needs: sometimes simple needs like rest, but sometimes deeper-seated ones like the need to be understood, to be heard, to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can take painkillers,\u201d Stace added, \u201cbut pain isn\u2019t asking to be killed. The true cause of pain is a person\u2019s body systems trying to keep them alive and look after their best interests. And in the case of a tennis player, your body systems don\u2019t care that you want to win Wimbledon, or that your world ranking will fall if you don\u2019t play a tournament next week. What we want and what we actually need are two very different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
We are moving into deep waters here, which are difficult to explore in the space of a few hundred words. Suffice to say that the intimate workings of our bodies are as mystifying in their own way as the quirks of quantum physics \u2013 which, incidentally, have become an obsession for Atmane, Draper\u2019s inquisitive conqueror in Montreal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draper\u2019s elbow sounds considerably more complicated. Yes, scans did show bone bruising on the end of his humerus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[6962,7258,217,101,5438,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-728733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-emma-raducanu","tag-jack-draper","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728733","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=728733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}