Jack Draper makes winning return at Dubai after months sidelined by arm injury
jack draper marked his return to the ATP Tour with a straight-sets victory at the Dubai Tennis Championships, beating Quentin Halys 7-6 (10-8), 6-3. The result matters because it capped a spell out of tour singles play and offered clear evidence of the recovery work he has undertaken on his serve and forehand.
Jack Draper’s winning return in Dubai
The 24-year-old, seeded fourth in Dubai, beat France’s Quentin Halys — ranked 68th — in one hour and 39 minutes to register his first tour-level win since the US Open. Draper won the opening set in a tie-break that finished 10-8 after he had to withstand a set point when serving at 5-4 and then edged the breaker by taking three consecutive points to overturn an 8-7 deficit. He secured the only break of the match in the fourth game of the second set when Halys hit wide to hand Draper a 3-1 lead and served out the match conceding only two further points on serve.
Injury timeline and recovery measures
Draper’s return follows a prolonged struggle with a bruised bone in his service arm that began during the clay-court swing in April and progressively worsened. Determined to complete a full recovery, he missed the Australian Open in January and then returned to court for Great Britain on 5 February in Davis Cup qualifying action. That Davis Cup match was his first competitive outing for 164 days; he beat Norway’s Viktor Durasovic in straight sets as part of Great Britain’s victory over Norway. The broader lay-off has been described as lasting seven months and stretched to 182 days without a tour-level win until Dubai.
Match statistics underline physical progress
Several concrete metrics in Dubai underlined Draper’s physical recovery. He finished the match with an 86% win rate on his first serve, struck 19 of his 24 winners from his previously affected forehand side, and saved two set points in the first-set tiebreak. Those figures accompanied his declaration that he had been hitting a "sh*tload" of serves over the past eight months while working to restore his arm to full strength and adjust parts of his service motion with new coach Jamie Delgado.
Ranking, recent form and past season milestones
Despite the interruption, Draper remains 15th in the world after having reached a career-high ranking of fourth in June. His 2025 season had earlier included winning the Masters 1, 000 title at Indian Wells and reaching the fourth round of both the Australian and French Opens before the arm problem curtailed his momentum. He had also withdrawn from the US Open before his second-round match after beating Federico Agustin Gomez in the first round, an enforced break that preceded his long recovery programme.
Appearance, coaching and what comes next
On-court Draper debuted a striking new buzz cut in Dubai. The haircut was noted alongside his remarks about intensive serving practice and a change to his service mechanics while working with Delgado. He said the frequent serving was intended to get his arm back to 100 percent — a direct cause for the measured improvement seen in his first-serve effectiveness and forehand aggression.
Opponents and wider British results
With the victory, Draper is set to face either Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan or France’s Arthur Rinderknech in the second round. The event marked his debut at the Dubai Tennis Championships. Elsewhere, British results were mixed, with Katie Boulter and Cameron Norrie posting varied outcomes in Mexico.
What makes this notable is that the win combined visible statistical improvement with the psychological boost of competition after a long absence: saving set points in a tight tie-break and closing out a straight-sets victory underlines both technical progress and match readiness, offering a clearer platform for Draper’s attempt to climb back up the rankings.
