Jack Draper has ended speculation over his participation in next month’s Australian Open by confirming he has been forced to delay his return to action due to his ongoing attempt to recover from an arm injury.
Draper has not played a competitive match since the US Open back in August, where he was forced to withdraw ahead of his second round match due to an arm problem.
The British No 1 has played just one match since Wimbledon, with bone bruising in his left arm curtailing his 2025 season, and he is set to be on the sidelines for a few more weeks after he decided to cancel plans to fly to Australia on Saturday.
There have been rumours that both Draper and his fellow Brit Emma Raducanu will miss the Australian Open due to ongoing injury problems and confirmation that one of the duo is out of the opening major of 2026 came late on Thursday evening.
“Unfortunately, me and my team have decided not to head out to Australia this year,” said Draper in a video posted on X.
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“It’s a really, really tough decision, obviously (with) Australia being a grand slam, it’s one of the biggest tournaments in our sport.
“However, I’ve had this injury for a long time, I’m at the very, very end stages of the process and to step back on court into best-of-five-set tennis so soon just doesn’t seem like a smart decision right now for me and my tennis.
“I’ve obviously been through a fair amount of setbacks so far, but by far and away this one has been the most difficult, the most challenging, the most complex one that I’ve had.
“It’s weird, it always seems to manage to make me more resilient, to make me hungrier, to make me want to become the player I want to become even more. I’m looking forward to getting back out there in 2026 and competing.”
The decision means the Great Britain team that was due to feature Draper and Raducanu will now be missing one of their big hitters, with the 24-year-old’s ongoing arm problem casting a huge cloud over his future.
The initial impact will be immediate, with the 200 ranking points Draper collected for his run to the last 16 of last year’s Australian Open dropping off his ranking.
He was battling fitness issues during that run in Melbourne last year, but still managed to come through three five-set matches before being forced to retire against Carlos Alcaraz.
A fully fit Draper would have expected to match that run to the last-16 in Melbourne and he might have hoped for more, despite his lack of activity in recent months.
The 2025 Indian Wells champion will also miss out on a cash windfall in Melbourne, with his three match wins at last year’s Australian Open earning him $420,000 Australian dollars, with converts to around $282,000 US dollars.
Draper has also missed out on a huge cash mountain due to the arm injury, including a guaranteed US$1.5m, as he was due to play in the Six Kings Slam exhibition event in Saudi Arabia in October.
He was also on course to qualify for the lucrative ATP Finals prior to his injury, and he also missed out on more prize money at the US Open and the Shanghai and Paris Masters events.
The bigger picture must be ongoing concern over his hopes to make a full recovery, with former world No 1 Andy Roddick among those fearing for his future at the top of the sport.
“It’s just health,” said Roddick on his latest Served podcast.
“This one disappointed me because he felt like a guy who through the first four months with what he did to Carlos at Indian Wells and then playing Madrid on clay and making a final there, you felt like Ruud stuck around until he was able to edge him out in that final.
“But you were looking at this guy, who made a US Open semi the year before, thinking is this one of the guys who can actually interrupt the stranglehold? He felt like that guy for the first four or five months of the year.
“When he is in full flight, he looks the part of someone who is a top three or four player. How does that translate over time? Can he get his body healthy? We thought he was going to come back for the US Open, but his shoulder was not quite there.
“I hope he stays healthy because what he showed for that pocket of late August through to May, 2024 going into 2025, was very exciting for the sport of tennis.”
Draper will be hoping to be back to his best by the time of the Indian Wells Masters in March next year, when he will be defending 1,000 ranking points from his win this year.