"You aren't forced to do anything": Murray's ex-coach makes frustration clear with Holger Rune's mom blaming ATP for son's injury using Sinner example

Last week, Holger Rune suffered a severe injury at the 2025 Stockholm Open. He injured his Achilles tendon and was forced to retire despite leading by a set in the Stockholm Open semifinal against Ugo Humbert.

Following Rune's injury that required surgery in Copenhagen, Rune's mother and former Danish player Aneke blamed the injury on ATP's scheduling. She claimed there are "too many mandatory tournaments" and players don’t get enough recovery time.

"Now Holger is the latest victim in the line of injured players. With an injury that most often comes due to fatigue," she said. "It is unacceptable that you do not take the players' well-being into account to a greater extent - but just put more and more pressure on them."

Former tennis star and Andy Murray's ex-coach, Mark Petchey, mocked players for calling out the ATP for its busy schedule.

"Players/team members firebombing their own tour publicly is a bad, if not suicidal, commercial strategy," Petchey wrote on X. "People that love tennis will watch tennis. People who don’t love tennis won’t watch a sport where multi-millionaires moan. It’s a turn-off. Most would happily embrace the grind that is currently being torched. You can’t grow the sport by dropping grenades in the press."

He used Jannik Sinner's No. 2 ATP rankings despite a three-month absence as an example. Petchey added:

"Sinner missed 3 months of the tour. 4 Masters events and is 2 in the race. You have a choice how much you want to play in reality. You just lose a share in the bonus pools. You aren’t forced to do anything when you look at it like that."

Aneke Rune also mentioned ways ATP can use to mitigate excessive scheduling. She added:

"These are old-fashioned punishment methods, and they have no place in 2025," she said. "There are unreasonable penalties for a cancellation; you should instead focus on increasing the quality of the game by having fresh and rested players on the field. If you want to make financial reductions, do it as a percentage in relation to the amount they have played and reported cancellations. Instead of robbing them of everything."

The ATP scheduling outcry is not limited to Rune's mother only. Several top tennis stars have also come out, blaming the ATP for the schedule. This includes Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz, Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud.

Holger Rune shares surgery update after devastating injury

Holger Rune recently uploaded an Instagram post following his surgery on Tuesday. He was lying on the bed and giving a thumbs-up. In the caption, he said the surgery went well and will keep fans updated on his recovery.

"Hi everyone. Surgery went really well today. Thank you for all your incredible messages and support ❤️ I will keep you updated on my recovery. But now rest and heal," he captioned the post.

Rune previously shared that his Achilles tendon was fully broken on "the proximal part." It will probably require 3 to 6 months before he can set foot on the court.

Edited by Krutik Jain