Injury forces Jack Draper out of upcoming Rome Masters and French Open

Draper was emerging as the most credible contender to Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz at the top of men's tennis this time last year, as he backed up his win at the  Indian Wells Masters by highlighting his prowess on clay courts with a run to the Madrid Open final.

Since then, Draper has been hampered by a string of injury issues, with bone bruising on his arm forcing him to miss most of the second half of last season and the opening months of 2026.

He had a successful return as he beat Novak Djokovic en route to the quarter-finals at Indian Wells, but his injury nightmare took a fresh twist as he suffered a knee injury in the Barcelona Open earlier this month.

Now he has confirmed he will not be fit to compete in the rest of the clay court season and that will have a huge impact on his sliding ranking.

The 680 points Draper collected with his fine run at last year's Madrid Open will drop from his ranking next week, which will see him slide down to around No 48 in the rankings.

He will then lose another 400 ranking points from his record from his appearances in Rome and at Roland Garros last year.

That will see him slide outside of the top 100 in the ATP Rankings, which is an alarming demise for a player who rose up to No 4 mid-way through last year.

Draper will now be hoping to be fit for the grass court season in his English homeland, with former British No 1 Greg Rusedski urging the 24-year-old to be cautious with his comeback plan.

"Jack Draper, the shoulder is good finally, and then all of a sudden the knee goes out," he said on the Off Court with Greg Rusedski podcast.

"This is disconcerting because you have six to seven months off, and then all of a sudden you start to get a little bit of momentum, and it's not the main injury you've been away for, but it's the knee.

"We're hoping that's not too serious because Jack is too talented a player not to get back. At the end of the day, the very best players have that extra belief, and they don't care about taking that extra time off.

"If you come back too soon, and you're not fully healed up and ready to go, you get another injury, because the body is not used to it. So you have to play those practice sets. You don't want to rush it back."

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