Argentine tennis received the news it was waiting for: after two and a half years without competing, Juan Martín del Potro will return to a court to play the ATP in Buenos Aires, which will be played next week. The organization of the contest confirmed this Monday that one of the special invitations it had reserved will be for the man from Tandil, who has been training for weeks thinking about that possibility.
“Confirmed! Juan Martín Del Potro will play the Argentina Open 2022. The Tandil tower will play the main draw as a guest”published the organization of the tournament on their social networks, to announce the most anticipated news. Del Potro has not played the tournament at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis since 2006, when he was a junior and lost in the first round to Juan Carlos Ferrero. At the height of his career he always prioritized the 500 tournaments of the European hard court season.
Del Potro has not played a circuit match since June 19, 2019, when he stumbled on a climb to the net against Canadian Denis Shapovalov, on the grass of the Queen’s tournament. Although he won that match, the fall deepened the injury to his right knee, an area that he had fractured in October 2018, at the Shanghai Masters 1000. Never in his career had he been out for such an extensive period, not even with the three operations on his left wrist between 2014 and 2015.
Since the injury, the former world number three has progressed with different treatments, from the least invasive to four operations, with four different doctors: in June 2019 it was operated on by Ángel Ruiz Cotorro, Rafael Nadal’s doctor, in Barcelona; in January 2020 Lee Kaplan did it, in Miami; Y in August of that year the person in charge was Roland Biedert, Roger Federer’s confidant, in Bern. Finally, in March of last year Jorge Chahla from Tucuman intervenedan orthopedic surgeon specializing in complex knee and hip injuries based in Chicago.
His first goal was to reach the Tokyo Olympics, but the recovery times did not allow him to return at that time. Aches and pains when starting to run and making lateral movements delayed the process. During the US Open last year, after an exhibition with John McEnroe, the champion of the 2009 edition anticipated the possibility of returning on the South American tour of brick dust and was psyched up for it. He strengthened the training sessions and confirmed to the organizers of the ATP in Buenos Aires and the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro that if his knee allowed him, he would compete in both events. For now, it’s the only plan in mind. From that experience and how you feel, you will see the path you will follow.
In recent weeks, del Potro began to train hard, first in Tandil with Marcelo Gómez, his trainer, and then at the Argentine Tennis Club, where he shared practices with Juan Ignacio Londero and Sebastián Báez to pick up the pace of competition. He even had the collaboration of Sebastián Prieto, his last coach before the injury, who was passing through Buenos Aires after his pupil Daniel Evans lost at the Australian Open. Page / 12 had access to one of those training sessions and verified that the power of his impacts is intact, although it will be necessary to see how that knee responds, since lThe pains keep appearing and do not allow you to plan much beyond the day to day.
