Jack Draper says hip injury is ‘ticking time bomb’ and recovery is priority | Australian Open 2025

Jack Draper called his hip injury at the Australian Open a “ticking time bomb” and insisted he must prioritize his recovery to avoid a long-term injury after being forced to withdraw from his fourth-round match against Carlos Alcaraz.

After battling through three brilliant five-set wins to reach the second week for the first time in his career, Draper was forced to retire against Alcaraz on Sunday while trailing 7-5, 6-1. “I had tendinitis in my hip that I had to get MRIs looked at and stuff like that,” he said. “I’ve had a history of issues in that area. It hasn’t gone away. I’m still dealing with that. Obviously in the preseason it went into my back and I couldn’t walk and it was really hard .I’ve come here and I’ve made it.

“I’ve been incredibly surprised by how much I’ve been able to play and put my body through, more than I’ve ever done before, esp. So I think it’s just one of those things, just massive overload. This area of ​​my body, if I don’t get it right and I don’t make good decisions, I don’t want to miss three or four months because of it.”

Despite his frustration after another retirement in a big match against a top player, Draper said he was proud of his efforts throughout the week: “(I) started the preparation 10 days before. First started playing points on Saturday probably. All things considered, I’m incredibly proud of my effort,” said Draper. “My tennis has been pretty average. It’s been really bad all week, but it’s been my competitiveness, my desire to win .It has brought me in the last 16 of a Grand Slam, which is something I am very proud of.”

After spending the last few weeks doing everything he could to be prepared for the Australian Open, Draper says he now needs to make sure his hip injury is adequately treated and he doesn’t exacerbate the problem by continuing to to take painkillers and live through the pain. After focusing on rehabbing his hip, Draper may opt to take an injection to help the injury, but he’s confident it won’t be a serious problem if he makes the right decisions now.

“There are such short windows in tennis to get your body right,” Draper said. “You don’t want to just spike your load that much and that’s what I’ve done here and that’s why I got injured. All tennis injuries, or most injuries in sports, unless it’s a freak accident, are stress management. If you do too much too soon, if I went and hit a thousand serves tomorrow, I’d probably have a stomach strain because I’ve done so much in one day. Everything is load management.

“Obviously I’ve come here and I’ve played a ridiculous amount of tennis and I’m broken. The key to staying injury-free and consistent is having that consistency in your body time where you’re injury-free, time to train, time to to get your body right. If you’re dealing with injuries and playing through pain and doing all that, it’s not ideal. You’re always going to have stress going through your body, but that’s important to me to get get my training load back up, get this tendonitis fixed or whatever I’ve got going on so I can be consistent with everything I’m doing again.”

Draper is currently scheduled to compete in the Rotterdam Open on February 3, but it is unclear when he will next compete.