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By Chris Oddo | Wednesday March 21, 2018


Juan Martin del Potro’s first Masters 1000 title was a long time coming. And it’s a reminder that Del Potro isn’t just a crowd-pleasing gentle giant that is capable of moments of brilliance, he’s one of the best players of his generation. It’s certainly fair to mention that Del Potro had the prime of his career stripped away by a series of debilitating wrist surgeries and their truly complicated and ultimately depressing aftermath, which nearly forced him out of the game. Had he stayed healthy there’s no telling where the Tower of Tandil might currently sit in the tennis pantheon. Had he never had to rethink the nuts and bolts of his jaw-dropping tennis, he may have ripped like a hurricane through the ATP’s best on more than a few occasions at the majors and Masters 1000 events.

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We can imagine a past without wrist problems for Del Potro, one where he plays his uninhibited power game and brings even the most talented stars of the game to their knees, but in reality tennis is a tough game that can knock the greats off their perch on a whim. Ask Novak Djokovic. Ask Andy Murray. Ask Robin Soderling. Ask Stan Wawrinka. Ask Rafael Nadal. The list of ATP stars that have been picked off by injuries and mercilessly shoved to the sidelines is painfully long.

Instead let’s stay steeped in reality and look at Del Potro’s latest crowning achievement in a different light. He has had to fight for the right to party—that’s no secret. And today the 29-year-old is doing just that. More than two years after his initial return from three wrist surgeries on his left wrist (we won’t even talk about the other surgery, to his right wrist, from May 2010) Del Potro has completed a long, patient and beautiful ramp-up and this Indian Wells title is a symbol of all the hard yards that Del Potro has run to get here.


There was a time two years ago when Del Potro was basically counted out by pundits due to his unwillingness or inability to strike the menacing two-handed backhand that was once an integral and necessary part of his game. When we saw him at Delray Beach in 2016, looking like a shell of the former dominant player, we cringed. That’s what fans and media do. We see something and we react before we’ve taken the facts or even listened to the player talk about his approach to regaining his form.

In this case the media had a right to be shocked. Usually the player works on the rehab prior to returning to the tour, and by the time he returns to the sport he is ready (or at least appears so) to hit the ground running. But Del Potro, unwilling to risk injury after nearly being forced to call no mas on his career, took a different approach. His was a practical approach, designed to limit the torque to his left wrist while at the same time slowly gaining trust in it.

Many were aghast. JUST. GO. AFTER. THE. BACKHAND! They said (half knowing that he probably shouldn’t and maybe wouldn’t ever again). Never mind, because even with the safety on, Del Potro had enough ammo of the intellectual variety to be able to defeat players with his guile and his newfound backhand slice.

And this is where the story truly begins. Because the Indian Wells title and Del Potro’s current ATP ranking of 6 in the world have everything to do with his willingness to grow and develop his game by necessity. If his old game was a giant redwood his new game was a beautiful flower that grew through the crack in the sidewalk: Rare, unique, and soulful.

Power and severity weren’t an option for Del Potro—and they still aren’t. So instead of bludgeoning the backhand he was forced to play with variety and touch off that wing. Always an intelligent and tactically sound player, it wasn’t that difficult of a transition for Del Potro to make. Sure, he was weak off that wing, particularly in 2016 and the first half of 2017, and sure, he suffered a lot of defeats to players who he could have trounced in ideal form, but this was a blossoming for Del Potro in many ways.


One has to give credit to Del Potro for how he has approached his second career. And it is proof of just how much danger he was in that he has approached it this way. Clearly Del Potro was operating with the belief that he was one more wrist injury away from ending his career. So he babied the wrist—and he still does (he does treatments on the wrist every day).

Even after a year and a half back on the tour many were still wondering when Del Potro would start firing that backhand like a madman again. The answer is: he never will, because he is still one wrist injury away from the end of his career (sadly a recurring and real theme). Not only is Del Potro rising up the rankings with a handicap on his backhand side, he’s also playing with the fear of his career ending in the back of his mind.

"No, I couldn't imagine this moment," he said on Sunday after snapping Roger Federer's 17-match winning streak at Indian Wells. "I mean, everybody knows I was really close to quit tennis before my third surgery on my left wrist. And after that, I made a big effort to come back and play tennis with the slice. Then with my backhand, it wasn't good to play at this level."

The psychology must be maddening. He’s a competitive man, a former Grand Slam champion who must be eager to prove to the tennis world that he is capable of more greatness, that he is potentially a Hall of Famer. And yet this gentle giant must be constantly aware of his limitations, he must play carefully, knowing he is vulnerable, he must fight his heart out on the court but at the same time always keep a governor on that left wrist—the one that has been surgically repaired three times.

That’s why what Del Potro has been able to do with his game is one of the most remarkable and compelling narratives to follow over the last few years in tennis. Watch him carve that backhand slice from the baseline or go to the net to knock off a backhand volley. He plays those shots masterfully now because he must to be effective. He hasn’t just changed the way he approaches the game from the backhand side, he has also incorporated all of the changes into a tactically sound, well-rounded game that deserves to be in the Top 10 and could be headed higher.

What has struck me the most about Del Potro over the last two years is not so much what he has lacked. It’s what he has possessed. The Argentine is a truly great problem solver and match manager. He can play an average match and find a way to sneak away with a victory. He has found ways to manage his physical limitations and his emotions and he plays with the relaxed comfort of an athlete that can win on an off day or with a Plan B the same way that he can win when everything is falling into place.

This was always true of Del Potro. He’s an intelligent player that plays his best under pressure. You can see that in his service games. He doesn’t hit a lot of aces or dominate on serve like a lot of the power servers do, but he finds ways to keep his opponents off balance and pulls out bigger and better shots for when he’s in trouble. You can also see it late in close sets. There is poise and there is that champion’s je ne sais quoi. Del Potro is a masterful reader of a match’s tea leaves and he knows when to accelerate just as he knows when he can pull back the throttle and smell the roses a bit.

That he has been able to do all of this over the last two seasons while carrying the burden of playing in the last of his nine lives as a professional tennis player is truly remarkable. I don’t know that any other player would have the patience or the passion for the game to do what he has done to return to prominence. He basically threw himself to the wolves for a season and a half, knowing that it was the only option, both for his health and his peace of mind.

He suffered losses to lesser players and played a lesser quality than he is capable of, all to protect himself and to create a stronger, safer version of his game. There were no guarantees that it would work, but somewhere deep down he had the belief that he could pull it off, or at the very least enjoy trying.

He has. He is. And it is commendable.

If you enter a casual conversation about Del Potro the first direction the conversation travels is obvious: how he can hit ballistic forehands unlike anybody else in the sport? It’s a question worth pondering, but in truth that mind-bending power is only one percent of his game. The other 99 percent, more than ever before, is about how he can rise above the odds and find ways to win, even when power isn’t an option.

In his second career Del Potro has proven that he isn’t just a force of nature or a powerhouse—he’s a clever, cunning tactician that can lock horns with the best in the world and come out on top without brandishing his biggest weapons.

That he’s also a beautiful soul that shines a beacon of light pretty much everywhere he goes is the icing on the cake.

Maybe on paper the best has yet to come for Del Potro. Maybe he’ll win another major or claim Olympic Gold in 2020. Maybe he’ll win two more majors, or even three. But in reality, what Del Potro has done to be here in the conversation, to have evolved in this way, is as good as it could ever have been.

In a tennis world littered with transcendent accomplishments by a generation of legends, Del Potro’s comeback ranks right up there. He has achieved an unthinkable progression, while overcoming deep fear with overwhelming passion for the sport.

 

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