Jack Draper has not played a competitive singles match since losing to Marin Cilic in the Wimbledon second round.
Following the loss, Draper withdrew from the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open due to a left arm injury.
The Brit will return to Flushing Meadows 12 months on from his remarkable run to the semi-final stage.
However, if Draper is still struggling with injury, it is hard to see him navigating his way to the same stage.
Draper discussed the injury during his pre-tournament press conference, leaving some notable pundits and journalists unsure about the state of Draper’s fitness ahead of the US Open.
Catherine Whitaker suggests Jack Draper’s ‘desperation’ to compete has formed a big part of his injury decision-making
Tennis journalists and pundits Catherine Whitaker, David Law, Matt Roberts and Charlie Eccleshare discussed Draper’s recent comments regarding his recent injury troubles.
David Law, a tennis pundit, journalist and commentator, said: “I wasn’t entirely convinced about the fitness of that arm because when he gave his first answer, I mean, watching in the mixed doubles the other day, I thought, ‘wow, look how he’s hitting the ball’ on the first day.
“Then I read a couple of tweets and a couple of messages and reports and people saying he was running around the forehand to hit the backhand, and so I thought, okay, well, when he was describing the details of what he’d had done, and have you got the specifics of what the problem was?
Fellow pundit Catherine Whitaker identified the specific injury Draper suffered, before summarising the Brit’s quotes from his press conference.
She said: “Yeah, it was bone bruising to the humerus in his left arm, which is the funny bone, isn’t it?
“He said if it wasn’t addressed, it could have become serious. He’d been playing with pain for quite a long period, started feeling it midway through the clay court season, and he said he went a full month without hitting serves, and he went two and a half weeks without hitting ground strokes.
“He was still able to do other training, and he did sort of confirm that he really put some time in the gym, which is sort of visibly evident.
“He did say there’s still some pain, but he said, ‘I won’t be holding back.'”
Charlie Eccleshare, a tennis journalist for The Athletic, said: “I just didn’t see how those two things could follow.”
Law continued: “The way I asked the question was because he said ‘I’d been playing through it’ at Wimbledon, kind of managing it, and I said, ‘are you still playing through something here at the moment? How is it affecting you with your strokes?’
“I just got the sense that… you know when they [players] give you an answer and they elaborate more than somebody who’s fully fit would?
“If you’re fully fit, you just go, I’m fine, I feel great. Whereas he just gave chapter and verse, and by the end of it, I remember thinking, well that ain’t standing up to scrutiny.”
Following on from David Law, Charlie Eccleshare added: “Also, it totally stands to reason. He doesn’t want to say that… he doesn’t want to give his opponents that lift by saying, ‘yeah, I’m massively playing through pain.’ But yeah, I didn’t really see how that stacked up.”
Eccleshare later added: “I didn’t come out of that press conference reassured.”
Whitaker continued the conversation, suggesting that Draper’s ‘desperation’ to compete may be forming a significant part of his decision-making, despite his recent injury, ahead of the US Open.
Whitaker said: “If it is more of a problem than he’s prepared to explicitly state, then kind of big picture, that’s a massive worry for him, isn’t it?
“Because he’s just taken a month off, a month without hitting serves. He said ‘I had a longer time off than I even had in pre-season.’
“If that hasn’t sorted it out and it continues to bother him, when’s he next going to be able to have a long month off. Because if this is a chronic situation that he’s managing and playing through, it’s hard… it’s hard to see this getting better and any time soon.
“He kept on coming back to the mantra of I’m just desperate to compete, which kind of underlines the suspicion that maybe that desperation is… a big part of the decision-making.”
Jack Draper could face Gabriel Diallo in the US Open third round
If Jack Draper can win his opening two rounds at Flushing Meadows, he could face 31st seed Gabriel Diallo.
The young Canadian star has proven to be a significant threat to high-ranking players in recent months, after pushing Taylor Fritz to five sets at Wimbledon and recording an impressive performance against Jannik Sinner at the Cincinnati Open.
Former WTA world number nine Andrea Petkovic echoed this sentiment on The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast.
Petkovic said: “If Jack Draper does play and he makes it through to the third round, he will have a really tough ask against Gabriel Diallo, who I have followed this year and who I very much like in terms of how he plays.
“He is a very aggressive player with a fantastic serve.”
Draper faces qualifier Federico Agustin Gomez in the first round, before a second-round match against either Zizou Bergs or Chun-Hsin Tseng.
Meanwhile, Diallo faces Bosnian journeyman Damir Dzumhur, before a potential contest against either Jaume Munar or Jaime Faria.
