His first-round defeat of Denis Istomin, 6-4 6-2 on Tuesday, is a good first step, but it’s still a slippery slope to climb—literally. I’ve insisted in the past that the key to del Potro’s success is not his fearsome forehand but his movement, and when he hit the turf in the first game there was a collective gasp of concern that echoed around Centre Court—or maybe that was just me. Del Potro struggled to find his footing throughout the match, frequently slipping and stumbling to catch himself with his palms on the grass.
Moving gingerly, del Potro struggled to explode out of his forehand corner with his usual aplomb. Up a set and a break, his feet escaped from under him as he ran, and before our horrified eyes, he slid into full-on splits, not a feat of flexibility the tall Argentine was ever designed for. It only got worse as del Potro got up, clutching his hip, and limped to the chair to bury his head in a towel. Fortunately, the tennis gods seemed to smile on the oft-injured star, as the trainer who hurried to court judged that no serious damage had been done. In his press conference, he reassured us with his affable smile that it was “nothing dangerous.”
How dangerous del Potro will prove to be in the next few weeks is still an open question. He gave the impression of just being happy to have won his first grass-court match since 2009, and although he acknowledged that winning on this surface was a dream of his, his real goal is to elevate his seeding ahead of the U.S. Open: “I want to improve my ranking for the U.S. Open. I don’t have time for Wimbledon, but the U.S. Open is my tournament.”
There are serious obstacles for del Potro when he plays on grass. Finding his movement is one. The low-bouncing ball is another. Del Potro hits flat, declining to bend his knees to any great extent to allow him to put spin on the ball. It’s part of what gives his game that languid quality, but it only exacerbates the difficulty of getting down to the ball. His tendency to go for relentless accuracy rather than outright aggression can also leave him vulnerable on this surface, and had Istomin—who impressed here last year in taking Nadal to three sets—been playing better, it could have been a trickier encounter for del Potro. But the Argentine retains the happy quality of being able to render his opponents’ games irrelevant. He wants to improve his serve, his movement and his volleys, and he knows that being fit is the most important thing to assure his future. Should that endure, he’ll have time to find his feet.
Del Potro’s compatriot, David Nalbandian, already has his feet under him, or that’s how it seems when I go to Court 2 to watch him play Ilya Marchenko. A former Wimbledon finalist and a wildcard here, Nalbandian looks in better shape than he has for some time, his physique as sleek as his game. Like any good post-structuralist, I don’t believe in such a thing as aesthetics detached from contingent circumstances—or to put it another way, that visual enjoyment of a player’s tennis can exist independently of the narratives surrounding him. If there was one exception, it would be Nalbandian, simply because watching him pick the ball, anticipate and strike it never loses its visceral thrill. Yet even as I’m watching him take the first set, 6-3, people behind me say, “Nalbandian’s never made the most of his career, has he?,” adding, “he’s always getting injured” in tones of deep disapproval, as if this is a somehow an unsanitary personal failing, reminding me that one is practically obliged to consider Nalbandian’s tennis in the context of whatever it is he was supposed to have achieved.
Watching Nalbandian come back from yet another injury-induced sabbatical, that narrative loses its power, but I wish we knew more about what goes on in the head of the Argentine. He is beating Marchenko with relative ease, mastering him with seeming effortlessness in each baseline rally and crisply punching away volleys on his net forays, but almost every point ends with a dissatisfied expression, an exclamation of frustration and a disgusted shadow-stroke, showing what he thinks he should have done. The only positive thing he says—“Buena!”—is reserved for his opponent’s winners. Perhaps it’s uncharitable to think that if Nalbandian looked like Marat Safin, he would also get tagged with the ’tortured genius’ label. I don’t know about genius, but he can torture himself through a straight-sets victory like nobody I’ve ever seen.
So in the end, both Argentines win in straight sets, yet neither victory feels entirely based on solid foundations, or fully satisfying. Before the day is over, however, both men are back on court, playing doubles against each other—Nalbandian partnering with Andy Roddick, del Potro with Radek Stepanek. It’s two unexpected combinations, but the match itself is so full of bonhomie that it somehow works—Roddick claiming that Nalbandian ‘owes him a beer’ for a bad miss, and throwing his racquet in imitation of the Argentine; del Potro and Stepanek freezing comically as a Roddick smash whistles past them. When del Potro frames a lucky return winner to break in the second set, Roddick screams in mock frustration and throws a ball at him, prompting a grinning del Potro to make an ironically contrite apology. It’s a feel-good ending to the day; all four of these men have taken their share of tumbles, in their career and on the courts today, but after all the drama and the grim business of getting back on their feet, it’s sweet to have a moment where tennis is once again and simply fun. Tomorrow, the hard work starts all over again.