{"id":8861,"date":"2026-03-06T15:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/a-fresh-start-fit-again-draper-sports-buzz-cut-for-indian-wells-defence\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T15:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:20:02","slug":"a-fresh-start-fit-again-draper-sports-buzz-cut-for-indian-wells-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/a-fresh-start-fit-again-draper-sports-buzz-cut-for-indian-wells-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;A fresh start&#8217; &#8211; fit-again Draper sports buzz cut for Indian Wells defence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/c5yd7pzqx6pt\">Russell Fuller<\/a>Tennis correspondent at Indian Wells, California<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published22 minutes ago<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">1 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>British number one Jack Draper says he no longer has &quot;any fear&quot; around the arm injury that plagued him for eight months as he prepares to begin his Indian Wells title defence.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old has returned to the scene of his biggest triumph, having beaten Carlos Alcaraz on the way to winning a first Masters title 12 months ago.<\/p>\n<p>However, a breakout year was curtailed by bone bruising in his left serving arm.<\/p>\n<p>Draper only returned to the ATP Tour in Dubai last week, having barely played since last year&#x27;s Wimbledon because of the issue.<\/p>\n<p>The world number 14 is also sporting a new look in California &#8211; extremly short hair, which is for practical and perhaps also psychological reasons.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There&#x27;s nothing like a buzz cut &#8211; you don&#x27;t have to do anything,&quot; Draper said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been out for a long period of time. Especially in an individual sport you become quite isolated, there&#x27;s a lot of difficult moments.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;When you come out of that, and you start to feel better within yourself, I just fancied a fresh start.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/cly88dz44m1o\">\n<p>Raducanu to &#x27;tap into a few people&#x27; over coaching<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published23 hours ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After a win on Davis Cup duty for Great Britain in Norway in early February &#8211; in what was his first match since August &#8211; Draper was advised not to play in Rotterdam the following week.<\/p>\n<p>But when he did return to the tour in Dubai, wearing a black compression sleeve on his arm, he beat Quentin Halys before falling in three sets to Arthur Rinderknech.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was very happy with the week in Dubai,&quot; Draper told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It wasn&#x27;t so much about my level, it was how I was going to respond to the matches, to the practice. That was kind of the final hurdle, really.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was proud of just getting out there and competing hard and doing what I love once again. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Potentially it was probably a good thing that I wasn&#x27;t playing match after match after match.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Draper beat back-to-back top-five players in Taylor Fritz and Alcaraz on his way to last year&#x27;s Indian Wells final, before overcoming Holger Rune to lift a first Masters 1000 trophy.<\/p>\n<p>One of the perks of winning at Indian Wells is that you get to select the menu for the following year&#x27;s Champions Lunch.<\/p>\n<p>Draper chose steak and chips, which appeared on the menu as grass fed filet mignon with parmigiano truffle fries and a green peppercorn sauce.<\/p>\n<p>The women&#x27;s champion Mirra Andreeva opted for cheese pancakes with vanilla-honey mascarpone for dessert &#8211; and she wasn&#x27;t the one having regrets.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m not feeling too great about that choice now,&quot; Draper said before the food was served.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve got to practise in about an hour. When I said that I was probably very deep in a training block, and having a very strict diet.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>As the 14th seed Draper has a first-round bye, and will start his title defence on Saturday against Spain&#x27;s 2019 Wimbledon semi-finalist Roberto Bautista Agut.<\/p>\n<p>With Draper defending 1,000 ranking points, he could drop outside the world&#x27;s top 30 with an early exit.<\/p>\n<p>But he has been able to do a lot of work on the court during his absence and is hoping his return will gather some serious momentum over the next week or so.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m still at the very early stages of coming back,&quot; Draper pointed out.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been out eight months and these guys are out there on the tour playing week in, week out.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But do I believe that my tennis, and my practice, and everything is going really well and my body feels good? Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m just looking forward to getting back out there and getting the momentum back in my tennis. There&#x27;s no reason why I can&#x27;t go all the way.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\">Tennis<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\/scores-and-schedule\">\n<p>Live scores, results and order of play<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/articles\/cl5q9dk9jl3o\">\n<p>Get tennis news sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published16 August 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#x27;I fancied a fresh start&#x27; &#8211; Draper models buzz cutImage source, ReutersImage caption, Jack Draper was the second British man to win Indian Wells after Cameron NorrieByRussell FullerTennis co&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}