Casper Ruud is no journeyman clawing for a foothold in the tennis world. He’s a three-time Grand Slam finalist, ranked No. 8, with more clay-court wins than any other player since 2020 and nearly $25 million in career prize money.
Yet even with that resume, Ruud pushed through pain for nearly two months – right up until his left knee, swollen with fluid and aching with every open-stance slide, finally gave out in the French Open second round. He didn’t retire from the match, but he faded, dropping 13 of the final 14 games in a brutal defeat Wednesday.
Afterward, the 26-year-old Norwegian echoed growing concerns among players about the relentless grind of the tour. With a packed schedule and a punitive system, many feel forced to compete at all costs – health be damned.
"You feel like you lose a lot if you don’t show up and play – economically, point-wise, ranking-wise and opportunity-wise,” Ruud said, noting that skipping one mandatory event brings a 25% cut to a year-end bonus on the men's tour. “You’re kind of forcing players to show up injured or sick.”
He’s not alone. Caroline Garcia, a 2022 U.S. Open semifinalist playing her final season, revealed in a recent social media post that she’s relied on anti-inflammatories, cortisone injections and plasma treatments to manage a chronic shoulder issue.
The 31-year-old from France wondered aloud: “Is it truly worth pushing our bodies to such extremes?” She spoke in Paris about the stress of trying to maintain a ranking and “the responsibility” of performing for one’s entourage.
“I can feel what she feels,” said Alexander Zverev, a three-time major runner-up. “The thing is, with us tennis players, it’s a one-on-one sport, so we get the blame all the time, right?”
Ajla Tomljanovic, who handed Serena Williams the last loss of her career, summed it up this way: “I don’t think playing with pain is smart, but I’ve done it before. Sometimes it was rewarded, and sometimes it wasn’t.”
Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, said she kept entering tournaments a couple of seasons ago despite problems in both wrists that later required surgery.
People around her at the time, Raducanu said, “were telling me I wasn’t tough enough, like I needed to just work through it, like it’s normal I’m feeling fatigued because I’m training so much. When in reality, I knew there was pain, and I knew it kind of felt more than just soreness. So I wish I would have listened to myself sooner.”
Australian Open champion Madison Keys said Garcia’s post resonated.
“She’s right. At some point, you just have to say, ‘I’m done.’ And like she said, it’s something that we learn from a really young age,” Keys said. “Everyone applauds (NBA star Michael) Jordan for playing with the flu ... and somehow it was a better achievement because he pushed through it. Obviously, it was incredible that he was able to do that while ill, but I don’t think you always need to.”
On Wednesday, Tommy Paul, an American seeded 12th in Paris, was not quite sure what was wrong in his lower abdominal area, but he knew it didn’t feel right during his second-round match. He was visited by a trainer, who couldn’t do much to help. Paul played on, won in five sets and planned to get an MRI exam Thursday.
“I’m going back out to play,” Paul said. “For sure.”
In another match, Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia tumbled to the clay, hurting his knee. He, too, continued, won to set up a showdown with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, and declared: “If it’s just a bruise – if I cannot make it worse – then I can play.”
Tennis is a non-contact sport, of course, so the perils are not the same as in the NFL. Still, Ruud estimated something is physically wrong with him in more than half his matches – “whether that’s just a small blister under your foot or maybe a little soreness in your stomach, rib, back, knee, whatever.”
“Every part of my body,” he said, “has felt some kind of pain.”
