Yesterday afternoon I spent 10 minutes watching Juan-Martin Del Potro of Argentina practice. These things happened: An older man walked up next to me and asked, “How old is this guy? He looks 35.” I told him he was 19. He couldn’t believe it. Meanwhile, Del Potro hit a dozen serves, at half-speed. He had a long, laughing conversation with the guy who was picking up balls for him. He finished by standing still in no-man’s land and belting forehands as flat and hard as he could, mostly right into the tape. He signed a bunch of autographs.
It’s unlikely those last forehands were designed to help Del Potro’s technique in any way. They seemed to be a final chance for him to get loose and work out any remaining nerves before his opening match, which was a few hours away. But my first thought when I saw Del Potro engaged in that match, on Louis Armstrong Stadium against his countryman Guillermo Cañas, was that the idea had backfired. Del Potro looked suspiciously like he had in practice: He was standing straight up, not bending his knees, not moving his feet, and hammering forehands into the net.
Del Potro came into the Open as the Nadal of the ATP's second-tier: Making the most of the big guns’ trip to Beijing, the Argentine had come of nowhere to win four straight tournaments, two on clay and two on hard courts. Well, not out of nowhere, exactly—let’s say halfway out of nowhere. Del Potro, 6-foot-6 with long arms, a rocket forehand, and a surprisingly smooth two-handed backhand, has been a much-touted prodigy for a few years. But coming into this summer he seemed to have reached the point where we could say he was “failing to live up to expectations.” Del Potro had suffered injuries, defaulted matches, and said something about Andy Murray’s mother while they were playing a heated match in Rome. He was physically imposing, but the more important question had yet to be answered: What kind of head was this kid going to have?
I felt like he’d gone a long way toward answering that question with his serenely confident and tactically sound victory over Andy Roddick in the final in L.A. in August. Now, in the first two sets against Cañas, I thought I had spotted a much more serious flaw: Del Potro was a terrible tennis player. I knew he wasn’t quick, but I hadn’t realized how choppy his footwork was. I knew his forehand would never win any style points, but I hadn’t realized how stiff the whole operation was, particularly the high take-back. Add in the fact that he was at sea with his transition game and struggled when he had to hit on the run and I began to think: If this is the future of tennis, I’m getting out of the game.
It all came to a head for Del Potro midway through the second set: A racquet head, that is. After losing yet another winnable point, the Argentine used his considerable height and leverage to bring his racquet to the DecoTurf and cave in one side of the head. This, it turned out, was what he had needed to do to loosen up. From then one, Del Potro was a different player. He came back from 0-3 down in the second to beat his scrappy opponent in four sets. By the end, the younger man was utterly dominant.
There were two major reasons for Del Potro’s turnaround in this match. To start, he has become fitter in the last year. This in turn allowed him to be more patient, even against a grinder as sedulous as Cañas. The last three sets unfolded primarily like this: Del Potro would establish himself on top of the baseline and push Cañas off his. From there he’d slowly move him around, careful now to get down for the ball and play with margin; then he’d attack when the opportunity arose. Cañas had no answer for this simple plan, no way to hurt Del Potro, and seemingly no clue about how to regain control of his own baseline.
So is Del Potro, in the end, more head than height. Has his recent run been a product of his less-obvious competitive skill rather than his obvious gifts of size and reach? And if so, is that a good thing for his future? Coaches will tell you that it’s whats upstairs that counts most.
Beyond that, do you want to watch someone whose game, as of today, lacks polish and personality rise to the top of the sport? It's been the great of purists for decades, that size will eventually trump style, but it hasn't happened yet. We’ll see how Del Potro develops—he may look 35, but he really is still just 19. I will say this: It was a rare pleasure to see a young pro today put himself through the mental hoops needed to regain his composure after he had completely lost it. I'd watch that again.