Del Potro feels the pain of injured rival Almagro
Juan Martín del Potro underlined his status as one of the gentlemen of the game yesterday. Given a free pass into the third round when his opponent suffered an injury, he declined to celebrate but instead sat on the benches on Court 2 for some time with a consoling arm around Nicolás Almagro.
The match had been poised at one set apiece when Almagro’s knee gave way, just as it had against Rafael Nadal in Rome a fortnight ago. Del Potro sent down a serve but Almagro did not move, simply standing doubled over and staring at the clay.
As Del Potro and the umpire moved towards the immobile Almagro, he started shaking his head, then placed both hands on his face and collapsed to the ground, where he lay racked with sobs.
“I don’t feel good after this sad situation,” said Del Potro afterwards. “I wish a good recovery to Nico. Hopefully, he can feel better very, very soon, because he’s a great player and we love to have him on tour. And, of course, it’s not easy for me when you have a friend in the other side of the court showing an injury or crying. It was really a bad moment for both, but I wish all the best to him.”
Del Potro has more reason than most to feel kinship with a stricken
player, having missed the best part of two seasons with wrist problems. “It’s an unpleasant feeling,” he added. “You have a player who is suffering quite a lot. He was in agony. I told him that tennis is important, but health matters more than tennis in this case, because I want him to be out of his bad patch.”
In fact, both men had been struggling physically yesterday. Del Potro nearly did not participate in this tournament because of issues in his shoulder and back, but yesterday it was a painful groin that sent him off the court for a medical timeout. With world No 1 Andy Murray looming as his next opponent, he will need the magic fingers of his physio.
“I know I have one day and a half to feel better,” said Del Potro last night. “It’s an old problem for me, so my physio knows how to treat that.
“I’m happy with my level at this moment, so my forehands and
serves are working good. But I need my body in good shape. Today I got lucky because I felt not good enough in my body. I felt something in my groin in the middle of the first set.”
On Court 3, meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios received a point penalty for
smashing two rackets in quick succession late in the second set of his match against Kevin Anderson. Kyrgios had been a set and a break up, but expressed his rage after hitting successive double faults to hand over his serve for the first time. He won only three more games from that moment as he went down to a 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 defeat. Afterwards Kyrgios explained that he had felt “way underdone” in his clay-court preparation coming into Roland Garros, and had lost motivation to practise since his grandfather died just over a month ago.
“I haven’t really put together any good training in the last couple of weeks,” he said. “I’m trying to manage some niggles. So I don’t think I was match-ready to play the best of five sets, but he played well today.”
Asked to expand on what his grandfather Christos had meant to him, he replied: “It was tough. I mean, I can’t talk about it.”