Recently, former US Open champion and 33-year-old Argentine star Del Potro said at a press conference that after years of battling various injury problems, he will soon end his player career and retire from tennis.
It is reported that the "Master Brother" will next participate in the Buenos Aires Race, a clay event held in South America, and it is also very likely that it will be the finale of his career.
Admittedly, despite winning only one Grand Slam in his career, Del Potro remains one of the most popular players on the tour. Looking back at the Argentine's 15-year career, he has achieved a lot.
1. He won the first four ATP titles of his career with 23 consecutive wins as a teenager. In the summer of 2008, at just 19 years old, Del Potro won four consecutive titles in six weeks — Stuttgart and Kitzbühel on clay, followed by hard-court Los Angeles and Washington.
He then went on to reach the grand slam quarter-finals for the first time at the US Open, losing to Murray.
He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2009 U.S. Open when he was only 20 years old. Since then, in 48 Grand Slam tournaments, no man under the age of 23 has won a men's Grand Slam title.
3. He was the first player to beat Nadal and Federer in a Grand Slam tournament. At the 2009 US Open, he defeated Nadal 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 in the semi-finals, and then defeated Federer 3-6, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 in the final. Aside from him, Djokovic is the only player to achieve this feat at the 2011 U.S. Open.
At one point, he was the only person in seven and a half years besides the Big Three to win a Grand Slam title. Between Saffin's 2005 Australian Open title and Murray's 2012 U.S. Open title, a total of 30 Grand Slams were held, with the Big Three winning 29 of them. Of these, Federer had 13, Nadal had 11 and Djokovic had 5. Del Potro's 2009 U.S. victory was the only exception.
5. He remains the only player besides Nadal and Djokovic to beat Federer in a Grand Slam final. Federer's career record in Grand Slam finals is 20 wins and 11 losses, including six losses to Nadal, four to Djokovic djokovic and one to Del Potro.
6. Height 198cm, he is the tallest player ever to win a Grand Slam title. Cilic and Medvedev have since achieved this feat at the 2014 and 2021 US Opens, respectively, with both players 198cm tall.
7. He is a two-time Olympic medalist. He won the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics and defeated Djokovic in the bronze medal battle. At the next Rio 2016 Olympics, he beat Djokovic in the first round, Nadal in the semi-finals, and then lost 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 to Murray in the gold medal to win the silver medal.
8. He led Argentina to the Davis Cup for the first time in 2016. His heroic performances included beating Cilic 6-4, 5-7, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 in the semi-finals, and then defeating Cilic 6-7 (4), 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 in the final to win the title.
9. In 2010, the ranking rose to the highest place, in 2011 it fell to 485th place, in 2014 it returned to 4th place, in 2016 it fell to 1045th place, and in 2018 it returned to 3rd place. Despite four wrist surgeries, one on the right wrist (2010) and three on the left (twice in 2014 and 2015), Del Potro has struggled to fight back.
10) He won his first ATP1000 Masters title in the same year and then reached the Grand Slam finals for the second time, setting a career-high ranking, all after wrist surgery. In 2018, he won Indian Wells in March, reached No. 3 in the ATP rankings in August, and then finished second in that year's U.S. Open final against Djokovic.
11. He has reached the Grand Slam final twice in a time span of 9 years.
12 He is one of only four Argentine players in history who have made it to the top three in the world. Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian are also ranked No. 3, while Guillermo Vilas is the highest-ranked Argentine in ATP history, ranked No. 2. Only two other South American men made it into the top 3 – Marcelo Rios of Chile and Gustavo Kurten of Brazil, both of whom topped the world.
13, he has a record of 10 victories over the world number one, the most times he has defeated the world number one player among the non-world number one players. These include four victories over Federer and three victories over Nadal and Djokovic.
After four surgeries on his right knee in two and a half years, Del Potro tried to return to the tour again. His last match was the Queen's Cup in June 2019, when he was ranked 12th, beating Shapovalov in the first round before exiting with a right knee injury before the second round against eventual champion Fio Lopez.
He has since undergone his first surgery, then two more surgeries in 2020 and a fourth in 2021.
On February 9, Beijing time, in the first round of the game in Buenos Aires, Del Potro lost 1-6, 3-6, and the match point was tearful. (Source: Tennis House Author: Wu Li Fun)