Will the 2009 US open champion come back to form?

Booming first serves, unassailable forehands, adventurous double handed backhands and ridiculously easier court coverage on clay and hard courts, not necessarily by spriting, but by the reach,courtesy long legs, define this man. He is 6 foot 6 inches giant, hailing from a football fancied country called Argentina. Once known for inflicting an unprecedented back to back defeats over Nadal and Federer in US open 2009, he is now reeling at No.9 position in ATP rankings.

Juan Martin Del Potro, as we know him better, is nowadays, at a very tender age of 23, looking not even a shadow of his own self as he used to be prior to an injury in 2010. When he entered the mainstream after a nine months long break, he found himself quite a distance away in the rankings, as expected. He even was once as remotely ranked as No.485 when he was back to playing tennis at the end of 2010.

Since then, a rusty Del Potro had to suffer defeats at the hands of many low ranked opponents before he finally managed to rise up in rankings. However, it has to be accepted that Del Potro has done well thus far to be placed inside top 10 in the ATP rankings. He is labelled as World No.9 but he is much better a player than what the rankings suggest. Now let us go back and try rewinding his career from where his purple patch started.

During 2009, he meekly surrendered to Roger Federer in the quarter finals of the Australian open in which he did not win even a single game in the second and third sets with the score board reading 3-6 0-6 0-6 against him. But a rejuvenated Del Potro, as we found out during the semifinals of the French open 2009, had a two sets to one lead against the Swiss Maestro, before squandering the front run position to lose the match eventually in five sets. So, comparatively Roland Garros was a better outing for the Argentine as he stretched the Swiss rather than going down cheaply.

Again, in the next Grand Slam which was at Wimbledon, he was ousted by the former world no.1 Lleyton Hewitt in the second round itself. But, he found himself back in the hunt in the same year which was yielding him mixed results all the time as he ripped apart Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the semifinals of US open with scoreboard reading 6-2 6-2 6-2. More importantly, he beat Roger Federer in the finals after trailing by 2 sets to one thereby, like I said, became the first person then to have beaten both the Spaniard and the Swiss back to back in a Grand Slam. It was a special achievement for Del Potro because since 2005 French Open, both Federer and Nadal were sharing Grand Slam titles among themselves, barring the Australian Open 2008, which was pocketed by Novak Djokovic.

The fact that Roger Federer himself admitted earlier this year during an interview following his victory over the Argentine in Australian open, stating he strongly believed Del Potro to become No.1 any time sooner at the end of 2009, speaks highly of the latter’s talent. Surely, Federer had all the reasons to believe so because on that very year – 2009, both the Swiss himself and Nadal suffered defeats successively twice and thrice respectively against the Argentine.

Having played at a very top level all through 2009, especially when the year was coming to a close, he was proving to be a real threat to both Rafa and Roger. We felt the two way competition for Grand Slams was narrowing down and soon would become non existent with Del Potro assuming a commanding position. But the expectations of tennis fans like us were short lived due to the persistent injury problems that kept him at bay during the better part of 2010.

The last one year had been crucial for him to jump back into top 10 which he did, showing his class, after a string of mixed results, that he had during his comeback season. But the problem that we are seeing with Del Potro is, though he is ranked No.9 which is a respectable position now, he has not been able to beat top players, barring that one result which he had in his favour against Novak Djokovic who played with fatigue, during the later stages of last year’s season. Roger Federer who was, like I said, beaten twice in 2009 back to back ( one in US open and thereafter in ATP world Tour finals) does not find any problems nowadays in dismissing Del Potro. Infact, he is having a winning streak of 6 matches against the Argentine.

Del Potro, since his return last year, has not been able to maintain the durability with his stamina which seems to fade away almost regularly nowadays. Those who watched the quarter final match against the Swiss in the French open, five weeks ago, would wonder how a big serving giant like him could lose from that position, after taking the first two sets with ease. It was evidently known to everyone of us that Del Potro was injured and so he was not able to continue at the same level, playing against Roger Federer, when it came to delivering the knock- out punch on the Swiss. Not taking anything away from Roger, Del Potro was well on course to winning the match up until the health issue which cropped up all of a sudden.

Still rewinding six months back, one more instance of him losing from a commanding position could be well felt. It was during a Davis Cup match on clay which he played against the emperor of Clay, Nadal. Del Potro was manhandling Nadal, literally all through the first set where the Spaniard had no answers to the strong forehands of this 6 foot 6 inches tall giant. Rafael Nadal was living dangerously but suddenly the power game of Del Potro seemed to deteriorate. He was moving very gingerly right from the second set and never regained his authority once the Spanish Armada took control of the match.

Del Potro’s health issue is really the one he has to address pretty quickly. He is not able to advance beyond the quarter finals of any Grand Slam tournaments and that says all about the receding state of his body which finds it hard to endure the difficulties of the best of five setters. He still looks good enough whenever he is in form and in fact his form was right up there until his fourth round match at Wimbledon. But, while playing a baseliner like David Ferrer his long legs just could not stand upto his requirements of covering the courts, going into the second week. Eventually, he lost to the clay courter, who, by the way, forced his own entry into his first ever quarterfinals at All England Lawn Tennis Championships.

Since his comeback, we could not see anything special from the Argentine which made him look to be a certain World No.1 in future. He no more looks to be a contender for any more grandslams. We have seen many careers getting cut short by untimely injuries, health issues and in some cases – personal issues. Michael Stich, Mirka Vavrinec, Martina Hingis are a few of those examples which we could think of.

The Argentine is just 23 and a very good player to be deprived of a Grand Slam for long. But, if his injury problems are not dealt with soon he would be having a tough time travelling ahead.