"That’s just brutal - but he’ll be back" - Sam Querrey sympathises with Holger Rune after devastating achilles injury

With more people talking about the length of the tennis calendar, former professional tennis players John Isner, Sam Querrey and Jack Sock all had their say on the 'brutal' schedule, while also delving into Holger Rune's heart-breaking injury.

The Dane suffered an achilles injury during his semi-final clash against Ugo Humbert in the Stockholm Open, with the tendon being completely torn. He will be sidelined for up to a year, with a painful recovery process imminent. Querrey shared some sympathy with the 22-year-old's injury after he personally ruptured his own achilles in a pickleball event back in April 2024. He explained how hard it will be for Rune to return to the court, saying it could take while after he makes a full recovery before he is back to his usual self.

"Yeah, I think about it a little bit. But I did rehab on mine — probably did 70% of what Holger will do. I was retired, so I wasn’t super diligent with the rehab or trying to get back as fast as I could," Querrey said on the Nothing Major podcast. "What was I going to get back to — recording a podcast with you guys? It’s not like getting back out there. I hope he gets to that spot, but like you said, Jack — even though he’s back in a year, it might take him two years before mentally he’s like, 'Okay, I have zero hesitation to push off in any direction.'”

Tennis players are always at risk of a big injury such as the one which occurred with Rune. This makes insurance beneficiary for scenarios like this one, just to cover the uncertainty in case something like this does happen. Querrey went on to explain that he only had insurance on himself for a year or two before getting rid of it, with him feeling now that he should have in case the unthinkable did happen.

"In retrospect, I feel like I should have," he said. "I’m glad I didn’t — I never had a super long-term injury, but some athletes do have long-term injury protection where they get compensated if they can’t make any money. Holger, of course, isn’t going to be on court for a full year, so that’s just brutal. Twenty-two years old — but he’ll be back. He’s so young, unbelievably hardworking. Tough blow for him, though."

In recent times, more debates and debacles have arisen surrounding the length of the calendar and the number of events packed into it. With the recent injury to Rune, it has once again been highlighted in the mainstream, with a new Masters 1000 event in Saudi Arabia does not help the situation. Sock, Querrey and Isner all believed that the calendar was too long.

"Tennis is a grind — the most underestimated sport in the world," Sock said. "People don’t realise the ins and outs of the travel, the grind, the hours on court and in the gym. We play an entire year. Everyone talks about off-seasons — but we get maybe a week or ten days in the fall. So yeah, I think it’s too long — not enough time to reset throughout the year. And if you do want to reset, you miss tournaments, points, maybe even quotas that affect you financially or ranking-wise. Would it be nice to have more time to reset and be fresh? Yes. But I don’t see it changing — it’s an entertainment business. They’ve got to put on events, make money, sell tickets. Could it be restructured a bit? For sure."

Querrey followed up this by saying: "Yeah, I agree. I don’t think the season needs to be shortened, but they need to get rid of these mandatory rules — like Taylor [Fritz] mentioned. If players could choose freely, it’d be interesting to see how many events guys actually play. You can’t just shorten the season and cut Shanghai or Basel — these are massive events with hundreds of millions invested. But give players more choice. Let some guys play 16–18 events and still qualify for Turin, while others play 35 if they want to. Right now, the penalties make that impossible."

Isner capped it off by touching on the injuries cropping up. "Exactly. The tour has to protect its marquee events — that’s why the Masters 1000s are mandatory. It’s a crazy long schedule," he said. "Tennis is the most physically demanding sport out there — all the travel, the jet lag, trying to stay physically and mentally sharp. It’s brutal. It sucks to see these young, exciting players — Draper, Holger — go down with big injuries."