Draper Collapses From 5-2 Up as Landaluce Wins Cincinnati Opener

Jack Draper lost in straight sets in the first round of the Cincinnati Open, falling 6-3 7-5 to Spain's Martin Landaluce after spurning six set points and surrendering a 5-2 lead in the second set.

Landaluce, a 20-year-old ranked world number 64, won five straight games to close out the match — a run that turned a set Draper seemed to have in hand into another sobering defeat. Six times Draper stood on the threshold of taking the second set, and six times he could not convert. In tennis, a set point is the chance to win the current set by taking the next point; Draper could not manage it once.

The numbers tell an ugly story. Draper finished with 47 unforced errors — shots he missed without his opponent forcing the mistake — and 12 double faults, the serve landing long or wide of the box without being touched. For a player whose left-handed serve has been a genuine weapon, that tally points to a man still searching for rhythm after a long lay-off.

This was only Draper's second match since June. He recently lost to France's Terence Atmane at the Canadian Open, and before that had pulled out of planned comebacks at Wimbledon and the Washington Open during the summer. A persistent arm injury has been the root of it all: Draper injured his shoulder at last year's US Open and subsequently struggled with bone bruising that refused to settle.

The cost has been steep. Over a 12-month period, Draper's world ranking has plummeted from fourth — a career high that marked him as one of the brightest talents in the men's game — to as low as 160th. He is 24, an age when most top players are hitting their peak. Instead he is trying to rebuild.

Draper has sought help. He recently consulted Carlos Cano, a 61-year-old Mexican biomechanics expert who had previously helped Arthur Fery become British number one. Biomechanics is the study of body movement — in tennis, it means analysing how a player serves, hits and moves to find flaws that cause injury. Whether Cano's work can get Draper back to full health remains an open question.

The emotional toll surfaced the previous week, when Draper broke down in tears during his return from injury. This Cincinnati match was his first since that moment. The BBC reported the scene, and the rawness of it lingered over his appearance on court in Ohio, where he and Gael Monfils were both scheduled on the opening Thursday of the main draw.

The 2026 Cincinnati Open is an ATP Masters 1000 event — one of the tier of tournaments just below the Grand Slams in prestige — running from 13 to 23 August. The main draw began on 13 August, with finals weekend scheduled for 22-23 August.

For Landaluce, the reward is significant. The ATP's scouting report flagged that the young Spaniard could meet Novak Djokovic in the third round, should results fall that way. A 20-year-old ranked 64th in the world beating a former world number four is a statement. Doing it by reeling off five consecutive games to deny six set points is something more — it is the kind of finish that turns a routine first-round result into a story worth following.

For Draper, the story is harder to read. The talent that took him to fourth in the world has not vanished. But between the injuries, the errors, and the six set points that slipped away, the distance between where he is and where he was looks considerable.