Juan Martin del Potro shook his head after hitting a backhand into the net. He had been down this road a few too many times before in 2017.
The tough draw, the hot opponent, his own sputtering game which he could never kick into high gear: It was all happening to Delpo one more time against Tomas Berdych in Cincinnati. When he lost the first set 6-3, and looked lost at the baseline in the process, Tennis Channel commentators began to wonder about a possible injury. Thinking about his lackluster loss to Denis Shapovalov in Montreal last week, I began to wonder if Del Potro—28 years old, 30th-ranked and the victim of a career’s worth of bad luck—might have reached his peak. Had we seen the best of Delpo?
Last year Del Potro returned with a revamped, albeit makeshift, game and found immediate—and frankly surprising—success with it. A surgically repaired but still-balky left wrist kept him from swinging out on his two-handed backhand, so he did the only thing he could do: He hit more forehands, and he hit as many of them for winners as possible.