Juan Martin Del Potro regains top 10 slot
Its March, and it is the beginning of the European Clay Court (CC) season. A surface which denies speed to the players and makes hitting outright winners a very difficult task. CC rallies are won by working for an advantage progressively, shot by shot. This makes the rallies long and spectators love the suspense it creates. For the professional circuit players who rely on speed to win, Clay is a difficult test of patience. Here, to win, players will have to reach the higher planes of enduring discipline and tactics of patience to survive and prosper.
Clay is one of the two original surfaces of Tennis from the 19th century. European Clay is extremely slow. Rod Laver who came to being on the Australia’s fast Grass Courts, is supposed to have said, “I can play with a cup of tea on the French Open’s slow burned red CCs.
Juan Martin Del Potro
of Argentina
The current top 10 of the Men’s ranking has 8 players between the ages of 25 and 36 and 2 below 25. They are Alexander Zverev 20 and Dominic Thiem 24. More than half of them are CC specialists. Argentinian Del Potro on his comeback spell, after a telling wrist strain which stole a great deal of his prime, at 29, is one of them. He is at No.8 of the ATP world rankings, and 2018 should see him in the top 5.
Argentinian Tennis was first noticed in the 1940s, when Alejo Russel reached the quarterfinals of the US Open from 1942-1945. The next Argentinian to be noticed was Guillermo Vilas.
South America and, especially Argentina, has had very good players in the last 50 years. Guillermo Vilas was the most known, along with Jose Luis Clerc during the Jimmy Connors-Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe era. Others of recent times are David Nalbandian and currently, Del Potro and Diego Schwartzman the small dynamite. Del Potro has etched his name in Argentinian Tennis.
Among the Argentinian Women, everybody remembers Gabriela Sabatini for her personality appeal and the opposition she gave to Steffi Graf, making Tennis popular in the ’80s. Sabatini still has a large following, and now has a popular cosmetic brand in her name.
Del Potro’s Challengers
International news media does not report Tennis achievements that easily, unless a player has a high popularity rating. Del Potro’s Mexican title win last week was well reported. His court mannerisms is as appealing as his brand of Tennis. Known for his lethal forehand which he executes in minimum of time, is his signature shot. When the going is good, his 1st Serve is seldom returned.
Del Potro does not look like he is a fast mover and is somewhat so. What gets him behind the ball on the wide surface of a Tennis court is his tactic of giving opponents very few options in shot selection, ability to read his opponents very quickly, canny anticipation, close up footwork for coordination and very ‘quick eye’ to read the ball direction, almost at the instant the ball leaves the opponent’s racquet. Most of the great players have these in them.
Last year’s early season and this season’s good performance by Federer, makes him the top gun at present. Nadal’s late season performance last year is holding him out at No.2. Marin Cilic of Croatia was the runner-up at the Australian Open, who also won the US Open title few years ago, is at an all time high of No.3 now. Apart from Cilic, the other contender for the top spot in the world ranking is Bulgaria’s flamboyant Grigor Dimitrov. Few years ago, Dimitrov was considered one of the two best new generation players. He did not perform consistently. Consistency in performance is an absolute necessity for top 10 position, which for a No.1 is a must. This is the calibre Del Potro will face as challengers, to get to within the top 5 of the rankings.
Del Potro is 7 years younger than Federer and has beaten him 6 times. Whenever Del Potro lost to Federer, the latter was stretched to his limits. Many would recall the semifinals of the London Olympics. Both gave no quarter and the match, to this day, is considered a classic on the Wimbledon grass.
Europe as Host
From now on, until the end of Wimbledon in the first week in July, Tennis will be in Europe. The continent which made the game popular and sustained it. The two Grand-Slams and many national championships will be played back to back for 4 months. A great deal of it will be on red CCs, with the short Grass Court season in England and Germany.
On the whole, of the 61 ATP events in 2018, nearly one half will be in Europe. The European CC season does more harm to players physically, than others. Last year, Federer almost skipped the CC season, to avoid physical breakdown. Most of the good players will do this, this year, and Del Potro could be one of them. ATP has named a few events as compulsory for ranking. It looks like this is going to be Del Potro’s year.
-George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of German Federation; National coach Sri Lanka & Brunei, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup captain/coach– contact 94 77 544 8880 geodano2015@gmail.com –