Last February, Juan Martin del Potro He seemed to say goodbye to tennis, with a defeat in the first round of the Argentina Open, on a night full of emotions. But, beyond not being completely recovered from the injury he suffered in his right knee, and which undermined his physique in recent years, the man from Tandil never completely closed the door to a possible return. And he confessed that he still feels “active”, in a step through the US Open, the last Grand Slam of the season, in which he became champion in 2009 and where he is treated with the respect deserved by a player who established himself in New York cement.
Delpo admitted that he feels “a weird combination of feelings” when he visits the US Open, and confessed that he doesn’t feel retired from the tour yet. “I see them play and I say: I have to be there”commented in statements to ESPN.
In fact, Del Potro stated that the organization of the American tournament invited him to say goodbye next year, with the possibility of playing as a guest, a situation that for the moment seems distant.
The former number 3 in the world commented: “I keep trying treatments, hoping to find one that will allow me to improve my quality of life and be well with my knee. If I improve, I want to try to get back on the circuit and today here -in New York- they told me about the chance to bid me farewell next year”.
“It’s my place, I feel like it’s my place. But also, When I come here, a thousand things cross my mind. I still feel like a player. I don’t think like a former tennis playerI don’t even do things like an ex-tennis player,” he said in an interview with ESPN at the venue where the fourth Grand Slam of the year is being played.
The man from Tandil, winner of a silver medal at the Rio 2016 Games, acknowledged: “I come here, I go to see friends, new players from other generations. I’ll feel good but when I see them play I say: ‘I have to be there’. I still feel that. Then I have a weird combination of feelings”.
“I live a day to day, with many emotional ups and downs and from tennis and from the process that I am starting to work on. Shortly before the tournament in Buenos Aires I had to make the decision to change course because I couldn’t do it and it made me feel very bad, and what I said then is what I still feel: I don’t know if that was my last gamebut I am clear that today I seek well-being on a day-to-day basis,” added Delpo.
As to the fight for the number 1 rankingDel Potro told an interesting anecdote: “I ran into Juan Carlos Ferrero today [ex número 1 del mundo y entrenador de Alcaraz] and we chat about what Carlitos may be feeling [Alcaraz] right now it could be 1, and I told him that something similar happened to me in 2018. I lost the final here, at the US Open, I was 3 in the ranking and I was super exhausted. But I had made the calculations that, if I did well in Shanghai, in Paris-Bercy, in the Masters and had a good Australian Open, I could be 1 because I was going to have better results than Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, who defended many points. I had done the math, that’s why I went to China, but I ended up injured. They are things of life. The number 1 appears in your head, yes”.
Regarding this US Open, he said: “It’s hard for me to assimilate that, of the eight quarterfinalists here, none won a Grand Slam, nor will they beat Federer or Djokovic, but it’s what’s coming. And Medvedev, number 1 in the world, lost to Kyrgios. There is a transition.”