One glimpse at Jack Draper as the tears flowed during a changeover near the end of his loss to Terence Atmane told the story.
The painful story of a young talent who must feel like his dreams are being ripped from his arms. A player who came tantalizingly close to the top of men’s tennis during a torrid stretch last season, and one who has now been besieged by injuries since suffering season-sabotaging bone bruising in his left arm last summer.
Today, as he struggled in the third set of his 6-3 2-6 6-2 loss to Atmane, and struggled to put any power behind his serve in the third set, it all seemed to hit the Brit at the change of ends at 4-1 in the third.
A year’s worth of torment, the black cloud of his injuries refusing to go away. His ranking plummeting from No.4 to No.143. Who could blame him for feeling this way, or for being unable to control the flow of tears? He’s never been shy about admitting how much the sport means to him, and how difficult his struggles have been with this injury.
At the moment, it isn’t clear exactly what Draper was feeling on court in Montreal. Having known what he’s gone through, and how frustrating it has been, we can only assume. Now we hope that the emotions were stronger than the symptoms, and that Draper find his way back to a clean bill of health and peak tennis soon.
As if one gutwrenching moment wasn’t enough in Montreal, Canada’s Gabriel Diallo gave us a second. Serving at 4-6, 2-2 against Luciano Darderi, the 24-year-old landed on his left leg after his serve and immediately came up limping.
That would be the end of his night. Diallo started the match wearing a full compression sleeve on his left leg, and he had already called for the trainer a few games ago, but now he needed immediate attention.
Diallo had his hands on his left quad after he landed. He played the next point and finished off the game for a 3-2 lead, but he would only manage to play one more point.
It was extra painful for the Montreal native, who grew up minutes from the site of the National Bank Open.
He had earned an emotional win over Kyrian Jacquet in the first round, 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-2, the fiftieth win of his ATP career.
Chris Oddo. Chris Oddo is a freelance sportswriter, podcaster, blogger and social media marker who is a lead contributor to Tennisnow.com. He also writes for USOpen.org, Rolandgarros.com, BNPParibasOpen.com, TennisTV.com, WTAtennis.com and the official US Open program.
