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Those painful images have relentlessly spread to all corners of the internet. Deep in the final set of the first-round match at the Canadian Open against Térence Atmane just over a week ago, 15 months of pent up emotion erupted. Two games from defeat, Draper spent the entire changeover in tears.
This was a devastating and alarming sight. Injuries had already defined so much of Draper’s career, but the uncertainty of trying to recover from a bone bruise injury to his left arm over the past year has been more challenging than anything he has experienced. All of his efforts since last July have been focused on trying to find a way to compete consistently at the highest level again, to no avail.
It was reasonable to wonder if his tears represented the realisation he may never recover, but the 24-year-old was seen on the practice court the following day in Montreal and his name did not shift from the entry list of the Cincinnati Open, where he is a wildcard recipient.
Ahead of Thursday’s first-round match against Martín Landaluce, Draper speaks with admirable vulnerability and optimism about this most difficult period. “I don’t get emotional often,” he says. “There was once I got emotional in practice in May when I had really bad knee tendinitis and my arm was really sore as well. I was in so much pain. I was running and my knee [hurt] and my hitting the balls and my arm was sore.
“Last week came from a place of, I think I had so much to focus on and manage, so much change going on in my tennis. I got to [No]4 in the world through doing the same things, the consistent work, the differences, and then went through this whole process of a lot of setbacks and a lot of struggle.
“That’s taken a lot out of me. But then at the same time, I’m in a position where I’m having to start again. That reality is difficult sometimes.
“The reason I got emotional was that through all the challenges, you can forget who you are on the court. And last week I felt like I couldn’t give any more. I was emotional because I didn’t recognise the player I was out on the court due to my injuries and due to probably the way I’ve been feeling for a long time.
“When you reach rock bottom like that you can come back up again. Since then I’ve practised really well, I’ve had amazing support from the people around me and you get to a point more and more of acceptance. We’ve definitely reached that acceptance phase now.”
Draper has spent the past year desperately trying to find solutions to this injury. After retreating on some of his earlier changes to his racket strings and technique, his retirement from Wimbledon on the eve of the tournament forced him to make even more extreme changes in his attempts to reduce the strain on his arm.
Not only has he returned to a hybrid gut string setup, he is playing with a completely different, more flexible racket. Draper appears to be using a frame from a company other than his sponsor, Dunlop, which he declined to comment on.
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“After this long period, my shift has gone away from performance,” he says. “I’m changing my string. I desperately don’t want to. I desperately know it’s hopefully not something that I’m going to have to do moving forwards, but it’s something I have to do for the nature of my injury. Same with the racket.
“It’s a difficult one because I’m a winner. I’m out there, I want to perform. But I have to accept reality, which is that I have to find a way in very uncomfortable circumstances right now. But if that can get me to the end of the year where I’m feeling really good again and my body’s in a great place and my mind’s in a great place, then that’s only going to help me to move completely past this injury. But there is a way out and I’m seeing that on a day-to-day basis.”
A year ago, Draper stood at a career-high ranking of No 4. Now he is ranked No 143 and the stop-and-start nature of his injury struggles mean he is not eligible for protected ranking. He is reliant solely on wildcards to compete on the ATP tour rather than in qualifying draws or on the ATP Challenger circuit.
“At the very start of my injury, if I was to say to myself: ‘Right, I’m four in the world now, what’s the worst outcome?’ It would probably be where I’ve got to,” he says, smiling. “But there’s a certain peace in that and acceptance because I have to start again. And what a challenge.”
