Jake Draper expressed his frustration at missing the Australian Open due to injury.
The British No. 1 on Friday, December 26, announced that he will be missing the Australian Open 2026 due to his arm injury, The Guardian reported.
Draper has only played one match since Wimbledon due to a bone bruise in his left arm, and it does not seem that he is making a return at the beginning of the next season.
The world No. 10 in a video on X on Boxing Day said, “Unfortunately, I and my team have decided not to head out to Australia this year. It’s a really, really tough decision; obviously, [with] Australia being a Grand Slam, it’s one of the biggest tournaments in our sport.”
He explained that he had had this injury for a long time and is now at the “very, very end stages”, and returning to court during this crucial time for “best-of-five-set tennis” is not a smart decision for him and his tennis.
The arm injury of the 24-year-old became his major challenge of the 2025 season, especially at the US Open, where he was forced to withdraw from his second-round match.
Draper further expressed, “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, and 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.”
The Australian Open, which is also the first Grand Slam tournament of the season, is scheduled to kick off from January 12 to February 1st at Melbourne Park.
