Del Potro - The Greatest Player Tennis Never Fully Had
In the summer of 2008, a little-known teenage Argentine was quietly achieving something remarkable.
19 year-old Juan Martín del Potro, of Tandil in Argentina, won his first four ATP titles back-to-back in a 23 match-winning streak that spanned the course of six weeks. This extraordinary achievement has never been matched, before or since.
And yet this precocious teenage talent was flying relatively under the radar, as the tennis world’s attention remained firmly focused elsewhere.
Nadal and Federer enchanted all that summer with the near five-hour majesty that was the 2008 Wimbledon final. Tennis fans, players and media were basking in the build-up and afterglow of one the finest matches ever played.
This is quite understandable. Rafa and Roger were, at the time, unrivalled forces conducting their own two-man duel for supremacy at the summit of the men’s game. Following Wimbledon 2008, they would continue to share the next four grand slams between them.
That is, until a certain young Argentine ended the duopoly a year later by defeating them both in succession to claim a first Grand Slam title at the US Open.
Juan Martín Del Potro had arrived.
Grand Slam Glory
It was the first time anyone had beaten both Nadal and Federer at the same Grand Slam. Novak Djokovic is the only other player to ever achieve this feat – once, at the 2011 US Open.
The affectionately nicknamed ‘Delpo’ was just 20 years old when he overcame a Roger Federer at the very peak of his powers, in a five-set final on 14th September 2009. Thirteen years of hindsight has now shown us just how special this event was - nobody under the age of 23 has won a Grand Slam on the men’s side in the 48 majors since then. This victory still stands as one of the great accomplishments of the modern era.
By late summer 2009, Del Potro’s game was already fully formed – the early results were quite breathtaking. The Argentine possessed an astonishingly thunderous forehand worthy of Norse mythology, a pure and powerful backhand to go with it, and – most remarkably of all – an ability to maintain high-intensity, full-throttle rallies at the pace of a seemingly casual saunter. Despite obvious athletic prowess, Del Potro played tennis in his own lackadaisical style. Rarely to be thrown off his serene rhythm, yet with a trademark turn of devastating attacking speed, the phrase ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’ comes to mind when recalling Del Potro’s game. Such was his ability.
But this US Open triumph was, unthinkably, to be peak of the career of this phenomenal young talent.
recurrent injury
The path that Del Potro’s troubled career took over the next thirteen years was defined by seven separate surgical procedures - two on the left wrist, two on the right wrist, and three on the right knee. Every one of these was a major, highly invasive procedure. The litany of operations that Del Potro has undergone is scarcely believable. Even less fathomable, for a tennis player, is that four of these seven procedures were on the wrist.
The injuries that the ‘Tower of Tandil’ (another affectionate nickname) would go on to suffer would be enough to end the careers of several professional tennis players. It remains one of the finest accomplishments in tennis that, despite all the injuries he endured, Juan Martín Del Potro still managed to have what many would ordinarily consider to be a glittering career.
Reaching World No. 4 in 2010, off the back of that spectacular US Open win the year prior, Del Potro underwent his first surgery on the right wrist that May, keeping him away from the game for a whole year. He had fallen to No. 485 by the time he made his return to the tour in 2011. It was the type of injury and drop in ranking that terminates blossoming careers. Most feared the worst.
Yet somehow, over the next three years, Juan Martín Del Potro clawed his way all the way back to World No. 4.
delpo’s revival
During this time, there were more notable achievements for the beleaguered Argentine. In 2012, he won the Olympic bronze medal. Having just barely lost to Federer in a mammoth four-and-a-half hour semi-final, Del Potro regained his composure to defeat World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the bronze medal match.
By 2013, just his second successive year back on tour, Del Potro was already looking again like the top five player he so clearly was.
Having reached the final of Indian Wells in March and winning the Rotterdam Open the month prior, he then put together a run to the Wimbledon semi-finals that summer. Del Potro lost narrowly to Djokovic in five sets – a match that was, at the time, the longest ever Wimbledon semi-final. He achieved this despite falling badly at the start of his quarter-final victory over David Ferrer, a fall that required over five minutes of treatment and, by Del Potro’s own admission, left him close to forfeiting the match.
2013 continued successfully for the reinstated top ten player. He qualified for the ATP Tour Finals, finishing the year with a 51–16 record, winning four titles and being named Argentina’s Sportsman of the Year. All this just two years after making his return from career threatening surgery. The resurgence was remarkable.
injury, again…
But, once again, it seemed Del Potro’s body could not keep up with his talent. In 2014, in the cruellest twist of fate, it was his left wrist that now required surgery. Over the next two years, Del Potro underwent ligament and tendon surgery on both his left and right wrist respectively, leaving him off tour for the duration and plummeting him to well below 600 in the world rankings.
To undergo such extensive surgery on both wrists and to be out of the game for 24 months appeared to signal the worst for Del Potro. For all the perseverance against the odds he had shown to get back to the top, and the unbridled joy this universally brought to the game, the mood had now changed. The elation and optimism of ‘Delpo’s’ return had evaporated. There was now a sad sigh of knowing acceptance from all associated with tennis. This, surely, was the unofficial end of the indomitable Argentine’s career.
But, yet again, he achieved the impossible.
resurgence and adapting his game
In February 2016 he returned to the tour after two years out for what was arguably to be his most glorious season since that 2009 US Open triumph.
With a severely hampered left-wrist, his powerful double-handed backhand was no more. Del Potro had to make tactical changes to compensate for the significantly reduced pace of this once potent shot. Utilising a one-handed backhand slice, he was able to move opponents out of position, slowing rallies down enough to set up his still lethal forehand. Despite losing a crucial component of his dominant baseline game, the Argentine’s tactical fluidity gave fruit to more success. Indeed, some argue that the forced change inadvertently improved his all-round game. Only a player with deeply layered levels of complexity to their talents could adapt so well to such challenges.
Now ranked at No. 145 in the world, Del Potro won a simply superb Olympic silver medal in Rio de Janeiro. He beat both Djokovic and Nadal to make the final, falling to Andy Murray in a wonderful four-set gold medal match.
The final quarter of 2016 saw Del Potro lead Argentina to their first and only Davis Cup title. Argentina’s beloved ‘Delpo’ was the undoubted talisman in his country’s triumph. The semi-finals provided the opportunity for him to avenge his Olympic defeat to Andy Murray. ‘Delpo’ obliged, playing magnificently to beat the Briton in a five set epic that lasted a touch over five hours. To put this into some context, this victory came in the midst of Murray’s finest ever career form – a run that would lead the Scot to the year-end No.1 spot and see him finish the season winning five consecutive tournaments. In those closing months of the season, Del Potro was one of the very few players to beat him.
Just to round things off, Tandil’s talisman then recovered from two-sets-to-love down to beat Cilic in the final and hand Argentina a trophy they had coveted for so long.
In 2017, his comeback continued. Taking his 20th ATP title in Stockholm, Del Potro then made it to the US Open semi-finals, beating Federer in the quarter-finals for the second successive time at the tournament.
This was backed up by a 2018 in which he added two more fabulous feathers to the Del Potro cap – a first Masters 1000 title in Indian Wells, defeating Roger Federer in the final, and a run back to the scene of his greatest triumph, the US Open final. Despite losing to Djokovic in that final, just under three years of (relatively) healthy tour action had culminated in a glorious rise to World No. 3 for Del Potro.
Is This Goodbye?
The story of what came next was sadly all too familiar by now. In October 2018, Del Potro withdrew from Shanghai with a knee injury that would plague him for the rest of his playing days. The injury lingered throughout the first half of the 2019 season, before being compounded by a fractured kneecap at Queen’s that summer.
Del Potro underwent four separate knee surgeries over the course of the next two-and-a-half years. At the tail end of last year, the tennis world quietly rejoiced at the prospect of the great ‘Delpo’ returning to action once more, as he intimated his knee was getting better.
Currently, though, it appears yet another miraculous and glorious return is not to be. Del Potro declared last week that his appearance in his native Argentina’s Buenos Aries Open was most likely a farewell to his most loyal and ardent supporters. Following his first round defeat, an emotional ‘Delpo’ did just that, leaving his bandana draped on the net in a gesture emblematic of someone parting ways with a significant piece of their life.
For those who do not feel ready to see the back of this extraordinary tennis player, there is hope. For all the emotion, the farewell sentiment, and the overwhelming sense that this, finally, is the end, Del Potro stopped short of saying he would never be back.
Asked if fans would see him play again, Del Potro told reporters: "I don't know if it's going to happen, because the pain in my knee is very high… But I will keep doing a big effort to fix the knee, and if I get that, maybe I will have another chance to play." There remains, as always, the faintest flicker of hope we may one day see the great ‘Delpo’ on the tennis court again.
The resolve shown by Juan Martín Del Potro over the course of his career should go down as one of the greatest displays of tenacity in tennis history.
Through seven surgeries across the knee and wrists, he still achieved the most career wins over World No. 1 players (ten) of any man to never hold the top spot for himself. He’s one of only two men – Murray being the other – to beat each of the Big Three multiple times when they were No. 1. He is a Grand Slam champion, a Masters champion, a double Olympic medallist, and a Davis Cup winner.
Yet his body of work, fabulous as it is, will always remain incomplete.
The heights he could have reached will never be realised. Del Potro was the greatest player that tennis never fully had.
And yet.
Perhaps it is all too easy to look back with a sense of sorrow or pity at Del Potro’s career. On the surface, the story of the ‘Tower of Tandil’ appears to read as a simple tragedy.
But there are more layers to this story. Deeper lessons to be learnt.
If Confucius is to be believed, our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Could it be, then, that a player whose career was so entwined with misfortune and agony, so synonymous with the mantra of ‘what could have been’, is in actual fact the finest example of greatness we have?
In New York last September, Del Potro stepped out as a spectator into the raucous atmosphere that is a US Open match on Arthur Ashe Stadium. As news rippled around the ground of the presence of a certain Argentine in the crowd, the mood switched from one of gladiatorial baying to one of sheer celebration and elation. Bemused and slightly sun blinded, Del Potro raised his hand briefly in warm and humble recognition. The chants of ‘Delpo’ were barely audible above the din of applause and cheering.
Juan Martín Del Potro may no longer be on the tennis court. But he has left a mark on the sport more indelible than any trophy or title is likely to make.
Jamie Smith contributes to The Slice from England, the home of tennis?
