ATP: Tsonga, del Potro - Two big prevented with the last hurrah?
With Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Martin del Potro , two exceptional performers may try one last time to get their foot in the door on the ATP tour. The chances of success are rather slim.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Feb 03, 2022, 12:25 pm
Dominic Thiem noted in his press conference on Monday that the example of Rafael Nadal shows that a return after a long injury break only makes sense if you are physically fully recovered. You should also have a fair amount of training days behind you, on which training sets are played. Everything was done for Thiem in Santiago or Cordoba, a small hand injury pushed back the return by a few days.
Annoying for the Austrian - but compared to colleagues Juan Martin del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Thiem is still a youngster at 28. Del Potro is already 33 years old, Tsonga even 36. It wasn't just health problems for the French that kept him away from the tennis circus. Tsonga started a family, so the charismatic veteran didn't necessarily want to be on tour for months. The situation is different for del Potro, who was tormented either by his wrist or, more recently, by his knee.
These days both are returning, once again, to the circle of professional tennis players. Tsonga got over it again in Montpellier with the two-round loss to Filip Krajinovic, del Potro wants to serve again next week in Buenos Aires.
Medvedev and Zverev already with better balance sheets
If you look at the last few years and ask yourself which players could have threatened the dominance of Rafael Nadal , Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer in the biggest tournaments, then Tsonga and del Potro have to be named almost at the top ( Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray did quite well with three major titles each). After his triumph at the US Open, "Delpo" was only able to add one really big victory for various reasons: 2018 in Indian Wells.
Tsonga, on the other hand, won two Masters 1000 titles in Paris-Bercy in 2008 and in Canada in 2014, but the only final in a major dates back to 2008: at that time he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open.
It is doubtful that Juan Martin del Potro or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will win many tournaments in the future that are higher than the 500 category. Because the next generation has long been here: Daniil Medvedev has a Grand Slam title, four wins in 1000 events and a championship at the ATP Finals, Alexander Zverev even has eight "big" titles. But maybe del Potro and Tsonga are just about having fun in a sport in which they would have been able to do a lot more under normal circumstances.