“I’ve had 8 operations, it’s a never-ending nightmare”: The distress of Juan Martin Del Potro

He doesn’t really know the warrior’s rest. However, Juan Martin Del Potro has put away the tennis racket officially since February 2022 and one last match as a symbol during the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires. He had not played tennis for more than two and a half years because of a damn knee that surgery had never been able to relieve. Since then, he has not been on a court, because the pain has not let him go. And a few days before an exhibition against Novak Djokovic still in Buenos Aires (December 1) supposed to allow him to definitively mourn, the Argentinian revealed himself on edge in a video posted on social networks.

“Nobody knew it, but the day after my last match against (Federerico) Delbonis, I took a flight to Switzerland where I had my 5th knee operation. Since then, I have not spoken about my operations in public again: by saying that it would probably be my last match in a press conference, I found some peace. People stopped constantly asking me when I will come back and play again. I did all this in secret, and if it had worked, I would have announced my return“, he revealed.

When he symbolically placed his headband on the strip of the net after his first round in Buenos Aires two years ago, Del Potro still had a glimmer of hope. He still wasn’t ready to give up his passion. “I was in Switzerland for two months, in a village near Basel undergoing rehabilitation and it didn’t work. After two and a half months… I had my 6th procedure. I came back to the United States. More rehabilitation, more than 100 injections everywhere, infiltrations, daily suffering. This is what my life has been like since that match against Federico“, he confided again.

Not spared from injuries, the winner of the 2009 US Open always came back before his knee creaked. Despite several operations on his wrists, he was able to change his backhand, working in particular on his slice, to play again at a very high level. So much so that in 2018, he won his first Masters 1000 at Indian Wells against Roger Federer, before returning to the final at Flushing Meadows, only defeated by Novak Djokovic. World number 3, his “comeback” commanded respect until this seemingly innocuous fall in Shanghai. He had in fact fractured his kneecap, the beginning of the ordeal. Eight months later, surgery was necessary.

“When I had surgery for the first time in June 2019, the doctor told me that I would play again three months later. I even signed up for three indoor tournaments at the end of the year. Since then, I have never been able to climb stairs without pain. I have pain when I drive, I often have pain when I go to bed. It’s a never-ending nightmare. I’m still looking for a solution. It all started with this first operation. Every time I think about it, I get emotional, it’s terrible“, he sighed.

And the “Tower of Tandil” goes into detail, always more touching. “My daily life is not what I would like it to be. I can neither play football nor padel. They deprived me of what I loved most, which was playing tennis. It’s very hard. There are times when I have no more strength. I’m not indestructible. Most of the time I just take it upon myself and pretend I’m okay. Every day when I get up, I take 6 or 7 pills: anti-inflammatories and one for anxiety. These pills made me gain weight, so I was told to stop eating certain things (…) I was operated on 8 times, by doctors from all over the world. With each anesthesia, I hoped that the problem would be resolved and after two or three months, I always called the doctors to tell them that the procedure was not working.s.”

Damaged for good, Del Potro could even have a prosthesis fitted to improve his quality of life at only 33 years old. If some doctors would prefer that he wait until he is fifty, this delay looks like a long way of the cross for the person concerned. “Since I was 31, I can’t run, kick a ball and I haven’t played tennis. Do I have to wait another 15 years like this?“Definitely, the Argentinian’s distress is gut-wrenching. And it reminds us that high-level sport is incredibly brutal on the body, and for some even more than for others. It’s difficult to make a new start serene in these conditions.