With his triumph in Indian Wells at the latest, Juan Martin del Potro has returned to the absolute top of the world. This renaissance seemed highly unlikely not so long ago.
This best game of the current season, with all the ups and downs, with the brilliant but also miserable moments, seemed like a condensation of the del Potro career. Del Potro started intoxicated in the ultimate duel with Federer, he had an early match point for a confident two-set victory, but missed the point painfully easily. In the third set, he fended off three Federer match points 4-5 before calmly mastering the last tiebreak of this showdown,”It’s an incredibly good feeling now,” said del Potro. The best feeling since those autumn days of 2009, when he had triumphed in New York – with victories on his way to the throne also against Rafael Nadal and Federer. What was valid then still applies today: namely the thesis that a healthy, fitter del Potro can confuse and significantly change the power architecture in the tennis world.
From his place in the no man’s land of the hierarchy 26 months ago, after his success in Indian Wells, he has just moved up to sixth place, ranking behind fifth-placed German Alexander Zverev. The chances for a further upswing are not bad, because apart from Federer many of the formerly dominant big players are weakening. Nadal suffers as much from painful injury problems as Andy Murray or Novak Djokovic, and nobody can seriously predict when and how the top stars will return to the tour. In the here and now they stand on the sideline like del Potro in the long years of injury.
Because of his highly complex wrist complaints, the Argentinean had even had to adjust his once feared backhand, so he was afraid that he would never be able to find a uniformly high penetrating power again. But in the match against Federer, the undoubted highlight of his long comeback mission, he showed exemplary his old power and dynamism – the competence to powerfully push his opponent into the ring ropes with hard punches. His early demise in this match was only prevented by Federer with all the excellence of his defensive art.
“He was the better man in the end,” Federer said later, “I’m happy for him too” Del Potro can be Federer’s most serious opponent this tennis year – now that he’s broken the Swiss’s opening series with 17 victories. The Argentinean has more experience and a more tempered side than the next and next generation of players, who were vainly victorious against the Swiss, especially in matches on the big stage:”I am proud how I fought my way out of the deep valley. I’m also surprised how I’m playing tennis again,” said del Potro, “but I wish the surprises would go on” Maybe then at the Grand Slam tournaments, a little eternity after the New York coup in late summer 2009. When everything looked so hopeful for del Potro.