When Jack Draper fired a first serve wide and the speed gun made its determination, the concern began. A 96 mph delivery was a clue that the chronic bone bruising in his left elbow, which has hampered Draper’s tennis since the 2025 clay-court season, had flared again.Three points later, France’s Térence Atmane cracked a forehand past a stationary Draper to move up 6-3, 2-6, 4-1 in their first-round match at the ATP Masters 1000 Canadian Open in Montreal, seemingly putting the result beyond doubt. As Draper sat at the side of the court for the change of ends and stared at the floor, tears began to flow.Atmane, the 24-year-old world No. 46 from France, completed a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win with a minimum of fuss two games later, and Draper’s latest attempt to return to the court was over.The 24-year-old Briton, who has a career-high ranking of world No. 4 and won the prestigious BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., in 2024, has to play competitive tennis matches to find out if his playing arm is ready to withstand that competition. To play competitive matches, he has to practice at match intensity — which can cause the elbow to flare up. That ebb and flow was behind his last-minute withdrawal from last week’s D.C. Open in Washington, which would have been Draper’s first tournament since the Eastbourne Open, a grass-court tuneup for Wimbledon.Why tennis players fear wrist injuries more than any otherAva WallaceDraper reached the semifinals of that event, but he then withdrew from his home Grand Slam on its opening day, 24 hours before he was scheduled to play Taylor Fritz of the U.S. in a blockbuster first-round encounter.