By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday December 21, 2016
"There's a fortnight to the Australia Open and I'm unlikely to make that objective,” Juan Martin del Potro said.
Photo credit: Juan Martin del Potro Facebook
Juan Martin del Potro doubts he will play the Australian Open.
The ATP Comeback Player of the Year doesn’t expect to make the trip Down Under.
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Del Potro, who helped lead Argentina to its first Davis Cup championship last month, said he plans to focus on fitness and is “unlikely” to play the Melbourne major.
"What I need is to have someone get me physically fit enough to last the whole year," del Potro told the Argentine newspaper Ole. "There's a fortnight to the Australia Open and I'm unlikely to make that objective.”
The 28-year-old del Potro’s last Australian Open appearance came in 2014 when he advanced to the second round, falling in five sets to Roberto Bautista Agut. Del Potro is a two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist, losing in the last eight to Roger Federer in 2009 and 2012.
Del Potro missed the 2015 Roland Garros nursing a left wrist injury, which also sidelined him from March 2015 to February 2016. He has undergone a total of four wrist surgery and suggested he plans to focus on health and fitness ahead of his 2017 return.
"We're looking at what the priority is,” Del Potro said. “If tennis waited for me for two years, Australia can wait for me for one more."
The 2009 US Open champion, who scored a pair of singles victories leading Argentina to a 3-2 comeback win over Croatia in the Davis Cup final, is also doubtful for the defending Davis Cup champion’s first-round tie against Italy on the red clay of Buenos Aires in February.
“There's still some time to the first tie against Italy, but not so much and it's going to be on clay and that's a surface I struggle on,” del Potro told Ole.