Del Potro: with an open heart before his ‘Last Challenge’ | ATP Tour

Del Potro: with an open heart before his ‘Last Challenge’

The Argentine tells his personal story before saying goodbye

November 26, 2024

Juan Martín del Potro will face ‘The Last Challenge’ of his career on December 1, an exhibition match with Novak Djokovic at Parque Roca in Buenos Aires. The event, organized to close the Argentine’s sporting career, will be the culmination of a path full of obstacles for one of the great modern stars of the ATP Tour. The ‘Torre de Tandil’, at 36 years old, will close the door on a story of perseverance, search for hope and, finally, resignation in the face of injuries.

In a profound testimony shared through social networks, Juan Martín recounted the ordeal he experienced for years on the sidelines of the slopes. The 2009 US Open champion expressed with an open heart the difficulties of his daily life, the limitations imposed by a worn-out body and a desire as simple as it was valuable: to be able to face the future with a minimum quality of life.

The words emerge almost three years after his last game as a professional. On February 9, 2022, on the clay of the Argentina Open, Juan Martín gave himself up on the clay of Buenos Aires, saying goodbye to his people. He did not manage to overcome any match and, in the only one he played, he barely managed to win four games ahead of his compatriot Federico Delbonis. That mattered little to a mind that sought to disconnect from torture.

“When I played the last game with Delbonis,… people didn’t know it and I never told it. The next day I took a plane to Switzerland and had surgery on my knee again. That was my fifth surgery. From then on, I never made my surgeries public again,” he revealed. “When in the pre-match press conference with Federico I say that it will probably be my last match, there I found a little peace. I cut off something that constantly happened to me, which was that ‘Delpo, when are you playing again?’, ‘Will I see you again in a tournament?’. I couldn’t take any more of the pain in my leg. There I told myself that I had to do this in a low profile, in secret,… If it works, I will make an announcement that I am really coming back.”

“I went to Switzerland, I was there for about two months locked up in a town near Basel. I had surgery, I did rehabilitation and it didn’t work. After two and a half months they told me ‘we had one more thing left, we’re going to operate on you again.’ The sixth! Afterwards, I went to the United States, I continued rehabilitating and between surgeries I tried treatments,… I must have had more than 100 injections in my leg and hip, in my back,… They infiltrated me, they took me out, they analyzed me, they burned my nerves , they blocked my tendons,… A daily suffering, which I have every day. And this is how I come from that last day with Federico until today, which does not stop counting the previous two years also from the day of my injury. This match was to say ‘bye, tennis’. I have no more hope of playing again because my body doesn’t allow it.”

That loop has been a constant for a figure called to mark an era on the ATP Tour, prey to a body that has prevented him from performing consistently. The former world No. 3, punished in wrists and knees from beginning to end in his career, never managed to free himself from a burden feared by any athlete, wearing out his mind in search of a solution that never comes.

“When I had surgery the first time, the doctor told me ‘in three months you will be playing again.’ This was in June 2019. I had signed up for the tournaments in Stockholm, Basel and Paris because the doctor told me to sign up because you have the time to play. And then, from the first surgery until today, I was never able to climb a staircase without pain again. A trip to Tandil that I make daily, lasting four hours, I have to stop halfway, stop and stretch my legs. It hurts me many times to sleep, when I turn on my side I wake up because I get punctures that are very ugly. It’s been like a nightmare without end. Every day I continue to insist on looking for solutions, doctors and alternatives. I still can’t find it. It all started in that first surgery. The truth is that every time I think about it, it generates a lot of bad emotion in me. “It makes me very angry, anguished, helpless… But I can’t change it.”

In this eternal path through anguish, Del Potro chooses to open up and share his story, seeking to help people who feel identified. A light at the end of the tunnel to hold on to.

“I feel like I have to tell you how I am because it does me good, I always had a connection with the public and maybe this message can inspire or help other people. As I say, my daily life is not what I want. I was a very active guy, who really liked doing sports, not just playing tennis. Suddenly, they invite me to play soccer and I’m the one who carries the mate and sits outside, or they go play paddle tennis and I make the videos. For me this is terrible. In addition to that, from a sporting point of view, they took away my enthusiasm for doing what I always liked to do, which was playing tennis.”

“Some things are the stones that can appear along the way, such as injuries, which is the most complicated thing for an athlete, but another thing is emotional pain. I felt very powerful and strong in facing those stones that appeared to me and that I always beat them. Within the logic. I was strong but at the end of the day I realize I don’t know if I am that strong. The knee thing, I feel like it beat me.”

The spirit of competition that runs through him, however, pushes him to say goodbye to tennis as he would have liked. Inside a court, under a great atmosphere and with a legendary rival on the other side of the net. Within the limitations of everyday life, Del Potro is preparing to live a farewell worthy of his figure. In just a few days, surrounded by his people in Buenos Aires, with the most successful player of all time as a teammate.

“I hope one day it will end because I want to live without pain. I started dieting again, losing weight, I started training. I want to be as good as possible, as fit as possible. But it is an event, it is a show to say goodbye. There is no more turning back. I think the final touch comes from Djokovic, who was very generous in accepting him to come. For me, beyond that personal moment of mine, I want us and people to give him a lot of love. May he take away the best memory of Argentina and its Argentine fans. If at least for one, two or three hours I can have a little peace in my leg and enjoy something on a tennis court for the last time, it would be very nice. And to be able to give them back from within and with Novak a beautiful moment, so much love and affection, and for them to take away good memories of that night.”