All eyes were on Draper’s upper left arm as he took to the singles court for the first time since a shock Wimbledon second-round exit almost eight weeks ago.
The attention was not necessarily to evaluate his beefed-up muscles, but to see if there were any issues with the bruised humerus that has troubled him recently.
Draper did not play the recent ATP 1000 events in Toronto and Cincinnati to give himself time to recover, but competed in last week’s revamped US Open mixed doubles competition to build sharpness.
On his singles return, Draper wore a compression sleeve – which provides support and comfort – on his troublesome serving arm.
Draper insisted before the match he would not hold back, although his serve speeds were slightly slower than usual.
“I’ve definitely had to rein in my serve a little bit to keep the pain down,” he said.
“At the same time, though, I feel like my accuracy is almost a bit better.”
An average of 111mph in the first set, dropping to 108mph, 110mph and 106mph in the next three, indicated he was not going full throttle.
The precision of Draper’s kick serve contributed to not being broken until the end of the second set – which he went on to win – and was crucial again as he dominated the fourth.
While his forehand winners were outnumbered by Gomez’s own blistering weapon, there were gasps when he did produce ferocity off that wing.
Flatter hitting from that side in the fourth brought Draper more success as he teed up a second-round clash against Belgium’s Zizou Bergs – another explosive, fearless opponent.
