Landaluce Topples Draper as British Star's Cincinnati Bid Crumbles

Comeback king: Landaluce saves six set points and turns the match around

Jack Draper's latest comeback attempt ended in a first-round defeat at the Cincinnati Open on Thursday, as 20-year-old Spaniard Martín Landaluce delivered a display of composure and character that few on tour could have matched in the same situation. The final score — 6-3, 7-5 — tells a clean story, but the second set was anything but straightforward.

After dropping the opener to love on his serve, Draper regrouped and broke Landaluce twice in the second set to lead 5-2, with a comfortable cushion and six set-point opportunities spread across the next three games to level the match. He converted none. Landaluce held firm, broke back twice in succession to level at 5-5, and then closed out the set 7-5 to complete the win in one hour and 56 minutes on P&G Stadium Court.

Draper's road back from injury remains painfully steep

The defeat adds another difficult chapter to Draper's 2026 comeback story. The 24-year-old from Sutton reached a career-high ranking of four in 2025 before a bone injury in his left arm cut short his season in June. He returned to the tour this summer but has not yet rediscovered the level that made him one of the game's most feared competitors. In Montreal days earlier he broke down in tears after losing in the first round to Térence Atmane — a signal, he acknowledged afterwards, of how much he is still carrying emotionally as well as physically.

Now ranked No. 143 in the world, Draper faces the prospect of coming through qualifying at the US Open, where he was a semi-finalist in 2024. "The mountain seems very, very big," he said after the loss in Cincinnati, acknowledging that his return to top-level tennis requires far more work than he had initially hoped. The British tennis public will hope he finds a way through; the results of the past fortnight suggest it will take time.

A 20-year-old Spaniard building real credentials

Landaluce, born in Madrid on 8 January 2006, has been one of the circuit's more compelling young stories this season. He cracked the top 100 in April 2026 and backed that up with quarter-final runs at both Miami and Rome — two of the biggest events on the calendar. In Cincinnati his draw now takes him to a second-round match against Matteo Arnaldi, who enters the tournament having received a first-round bye as a seeded player.

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It will be a sharper test of Landaluce's credentials, but the manner of his win over Draper — calm under pressure, never rattled when the set points piled up against him — suggests the Spaniard has the temperament for deep runs at this level.

What Draper's exit means for the Cincinnati picture

Draper had been cited by many observers as a player capable of making a genuine impact in a draw thinned considerably by the absences of world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. His early exit eases the road for others in the upper half of the bracket, most notably top seed Alexander Zverev, who begins his campaign on Sunday against Cameron Norrie.

The bigger picture at the Cincinnati Open now centres on whether Novak Djokovic, the three-time champion returning to the tournament for the first time since his 2023 title run, can shake off the ring rust and challenge Zverev for the trophy. Djokovic faces Thiago Agustín Tirante in his opening match on Saturday — a player who himself had to come through a tight three-set battle to reach this stage and will not roll over for anyone. The draw is open; the drama is just beginning.