Jack Draper has ruled himself out of next week’s Queen’s Club Championships, the British number three confirming on Tuesday that a right knee problem first sustained during his Madrid Open quarter-final defeat to Lorenzo Musetti has refused to settle in time for the grass-court swing’s traditional curtain-raiser. The 24-year-old now hopes to return at the Eastbourne Open, which begins on 22 June, leaving him just six days of competitive match play before Wimbledon.
“I’ve done everything I can to be ready for Queen’s, but the medical team and I agreed it wasn’t worth the risk,” Draper said in a statement released through the LTA. “Eastbourne is the target. I want to walk onto Centre Court at Wimbledon feeling sharp, not patched up.” The world number 28 has not played a competitive match since limping out of his French Open second-round tie against Gael Monfils on 28 May, a withdrawal that cost him an estimated 180 ranking points.
The injury and its timing
Draper first felt discomfort in the medial side of his right knee during the third set against Musetti on 1 May, but pushed on through Rome and Roland Garros on anti-inflammatories. An MRI scan in London last Thursday revealed a low-grade strain of the medial collateral ligament — not a tear, but enough to warrant a minimum 10-day loading block before he can return to court. Tournament director Stephen Farrow confirmed Draper’s withdrawal from the Queen’s draw on Tuesday morning, with American Reilly Opelka promoted from the alternates list to take his place.
The loss is significant for the £2.4m event, which had marketed Draper as one of its three headline draws alongside Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. Draper had been seeded fourth and was scheduled to open against French qualifier Arthur Cazaux on the new-look Wednesday slot. He had reached the semi-finals at Queen’s last year, beaten in straight sets by Alcaraz, and the LTA had built much of its grass-court promotional campaign around a possible rematch.
Wimbledon arithmetic
The wider concern is what this means for Wimbledon, which begins on 29 June. Draper arrives at SW19 defending 240 points from his quarter-final run in 2025, the deepest any British man has gone at the championships since Andy Murray’s 2017 last-eight finish. Drop those points and his ranking slips into the low 40s — outside the seeded bracket for the US Open hard-court swing and, more immediately, into a draw position where a first-week meeting with a top-eight seed becomes likely.
Eastbourne, a 250-level event, offers a maximum of 250 points and, critically, four to five matches against grass-court specialists. Draper has played the tournament only once before, losing in the first round in 2023 to Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. His coaching team, led by James Trotman, is understood to favour two practice sets at the Devonshire Park courts on 20 and 21 June before the main draw begins. The risk is obvious: a player returning from injury, on a surface that punishes lateral movement, with no margin to test the knee against a non-ranking opponent.
What it means for British tennis
- Cameron Norrie, the British number two, is now the LTA’s only confirmed top-50 entrant at Queen’s, with wild cards going to Jacob Fearnley, Billy Harris and Henry Searle.
- Jack Pinnington Jones, ranked 187, has been handed Draper’s vacated spot in the qualifying draw — a development that may prove more consequential for British depth than the headlines suggest.
- Emma Raducanu’s victory at the Queen’s Club women’s event last week, the first staging of the WTA tournament since 1973, has shifted the LTA’s promotional weight onto the women’s tour for the build-up week.
For Draper himself, the calculation is brutally simple. He has spent 18 months building a body that can absorb best-of-five tennis, transforming from the player who retired hurt at the 2022 US Open into a Cincinnati Masters finalist last August. A reactive injury to the knee — the third significant physical issue of his career after shoulder and abdominal problems — is the kind of setback that defines whether a player becomes a top-10 fixture or a perennial threat to break through. Wimbledon, in 19 days’ time, will tell us which.
The LTA confirmed Draper will train at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton until 18 June, when he travels to the south coast. Eastbourne’s main draw begins on Sunday 22 June, with the men’s final scheduled for 27 June — 48 hours before the first ball is struck at the All England Club.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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