‘I hate being the guy who gets injured a lot’: British starlet Jack Draper is devastated after a shoulder injury forced him to serve underarm before retiring on his senior debut at Roland Garros
- Jack Draper saw his senior French Open debut derailed by injury on Monday
- He started experiencing pain in his shoulder while serving in training on Sunday
- 21-year-old mixed armpit with conventional serves in first-round match
Jack Draper has been devastated after his senior debut at Roland Garros was derailed by another injury.
The 21-year-old has had a problem with scar tissue in his hip and more recently an abdominal problem.
He later revealed that he started experiencing pain in his shoulder while serving in training on Sunday.
Before long, he was mixing up the armpits with conventional serves and actually salvaged the loss of an early break in the process before retiring at 4-6, 0-1 against Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
“I hate being the guy who gets injured the most,” the 21-year-old southpaw admitted. ‘ It is difficult. Mentally it’s extremely hard, harder than playing and almost losing. Because you just came back from fighting after injuries.
Jack Draper (above) had his senior French Open debut derailed by another injury on Monday
He had started to experience pain in his shoulder while serving in training on Sunday
” I worked a lot. I had a great week last week and come here feeling optimistic, but it’s not meant to be. I feel a bit destroyed mentally.
“I said to my coach: ‘I’m not retiring from another match’. I don’t want to do that. Even if I had to play three sets under the arms, I don’t care, I just wanted to play .
“But there’s no point in making it worse. I don’t think it’s going to be anything serious. I just have a very inflamed tendon. I think I’ll be more than fine for Wimbledon.
He felt he hadn’t had good health since entering the US Open last summer.
“Sometimes it just takes a little while to gain momentum and get going. It’s hard to trust my body right now. But I’m 21, I just need a little confidence and a little breakthrough with that. I’m sure I will. My tennis is there, it’s just my body that’s letting me down a bit at the moment. But it will come.
The grass-court season kicks off next week and – if that’s not a lingering problem – he will head into it having played in just four tournaments since January, with three mid-game retirements in the past nine months.
