{"id":732632,"date":"2026-06-29T09:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/732632\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T09:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:56:17","slug":"jack-draper-eager-to-compete-with-the-best-as-taylor-fritz-test-awaits-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/732632\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Draper eager to \u2018compete with the best\u2019 as Taylor Fritz test awaits | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were many times in the past year when just watching tennis was painful for Jack\u00a0Draper. Twelve months ago, the Briton was riding high, ranked a career\u2011high No 4, having won his first Masters 1000 title in Indian\u00a0Wells<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The subsequent year has been the most difficult of his career, with an arm injury \u2013 a bruised humerus \u2013 causing him to pull out of the US Open and miss the Australian Open this year, while a knee injury in the spring forced him out of the French Open. He returned last week in Eastbourne, reaching the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, especially not watching tennis,\u201d he says. \u201cI just had to stay away from it. It would wind me up to watch tennis because I wanted to be out there. I\u00a0spent a lot of time working\u00a0on other areas of my tennis, like my mental side. I didn\u2019t stop physically. I tried to stay as fit as I\u00a0could because that\u2019s the thing \u2013 you never know when you\u2019re going\u00a0to turn the corner, never know when you\u2019re going to be able\u00a0to do it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing here last year as four in the world, I was feeling incredible and looking forward to everything that was to come. I felt like I was gradually building up and up and up, confidence in my tennis, in my body, in my mind. Then you have something that stops you in your tracks when you\u2019re not expecting it. It\u2019s really difficult to accept that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an incredibly long process. It\u2019s taken a lot out of me mentally coming back and coming back and coming back. At the same time, I feel like I\u2019m in a position now where I can compete at a really high level and really compete with the best players. There was a period, even earlier this year, I was compromising a lot of things. I was using gut strings, changing different areas in my game, practising hardly at all. Now I\u2019m in a position where I\u2019ve got that load for my body and I\u2019m able to go out there and compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Draper has hired Andy Murray, twice a Wimbledon champion, as his coach. Photograph: Jan Kruger\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Good, then, that Draper has Andy Murray in his camp<\/a>. The former world No 1 joined Draper\u2019s team at the start of the grass season and, though the 24\u2011year\u2011old had to miss the Queen\u2019s Club tournament, the Scot\u2019s presence has been hugely beneficial. Murray dealt with numerous injuries during his career, famously returning from a resurfaced hip to add on a few years, showing his mental fortitude. If anyone knows how to cope, it is him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving him around helps a lot,\u201d Draper says. \u201cHe\u2019s one of my biggest inspirations. Him just being\u00a0here \u2026 not just now but the last few weeks, has really helped my confidence. It\u2019s not been an easy time at all. Him being around to help guide me through this period, get me back to being on court, get me back to competing, has been very, very special. I think it\u2019s just the start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Draper has done everything possible to get back to this point, including changing his serving stance, going back to a step-up, where he starts feet apart and then brings the back foot forward to join the front one. He has also consulted a sports psychologist and looked into every aspect of recovery.<\/p>\n

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His return is a huge boost for British tennis but Draper is concerned at the number of injuries on the men\u2019s tour, including Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, who is missing from Wimbledon with a wrist injury. \u201cWhen I look at the draws for the weeks when I was out, everything is shoulder, arm, wrist,\u201d Draper says. \u201cWhether that\u2019s the quality of the balls \u2026 the way athletes are getting better and hitting the ball harder and moving better, I think they need to really take a close look at what we\u2019re doing on tour, definitely the state of the Masters 1000s, the 12-day events. I think the tournaments are going to suffer a lot if not much changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will be no time for Draper to ease himself into Wimbledon<\/a>, though, as he plays Taylor Fritz, the No 6 seed, in round one. \u201cIt\u2019s just important that I focus on my preparation,\u201d the Briton says. \u201cI believe that I can obviously win the match. But I need to play incredible tennis and need to compete really hard, need to be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were many times in the past year when just watching tennis was painful for Jack\u00a0Draper. Twelve months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-732632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}