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Australian No.1 Alex de Minaur hopes a new training system will have him back on track after osteitis pubis threatened his season.
Alex de Minaur has vowed to learn from his mistakes after admitting he feared his season would be ruined by injury.
The world No.26 from Sydney enjoyed a stunning six month period between July last year and January when he went from breaking in to the top 100 to winning his first ATP title in Sydney.
But after rising to a career-high 24 in March, de Minaur was struck down by osteitis pubis - a condition in which the right and left pubic bones meet at the lower front part of the pelvis and create inflammation.
The problem sidelined him for nearly two months and he admits it was the result of him training too hard.
"I felt that happened when I was playing my best tennis," said de Minaur, after his first-round clash at Queen's Club in London was washed out on Tuesday.
"It's given me a real focus on what I need to do with my body and make sure it doesn't happen again.
"There was sort of something I could have done better, but you don't pay too much attention to it and that was my fault.
"I definitely did not enjoy being stuck at home while everyone else was out there playing tournaments, doing what I love.
"So it's a real focus for doing everything I can not to get injured again."
De Minaur was name-checked by world No.6 Stefanos Tsitsipas this week as one of the young guns he believes is capable of pushing out the old guard of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in the next few years.
Unlike the hugely talented Greek, de Minaur is yet to beat a top-20 opponent, with his win over former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic, than ranked 24, in Brisbane last year, his biggest scalp to date.
But the 2015 junior Wimbledon finalist believes a newly-structured training regime will help him take that next step, just in time for the start of the grass season.
He also hopes it will help him avoid the difficult draws he's been handed at grand slams.
De Minaur faced Nadal in the third rounds of Wimbledon and the Australian Open in addition to tackling former champion Marin Cilic in last year's US Open at the same stage.
"Every tournament you go out there with the intention to get higher," he said.
"The higher you get in the rankings the better seedings you get.
"So instead of playing Rafa in the third round you may play someone between 16 and 32 which makes a fairly big difference.
"It's a work in progress but I have to get as many points as I can so I can get draws that go my way."
De Minaur is taking inspiration from his fellow Newcombe Medal winner Ashleigh Barty's stunning French Open win.
"It was amazing. Ash and her team have always been great to me, always been super nice," he said.
"To see what she has done is pretty special.
"The sky's the limit for her."
