Juan Martin del Potro is one of the tennis greats who sat in the clouds with Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer. The three best tennis players were challenging to defeat, but the Argentine star developed into a master of resuscitation; he faced them head-on, defeated them, and prevailed.
Recently, the 34-year-old tennis pro disclosed the reason that made him stand out from the crowd. Apart from winning Grand Slam tournaments and climbing the rankings, the tennis players had one more objective: to defeat the big three on the court. Well, surviving in the Big Three era as a tennis player was a huge thing!
Juan Martin del Potro on defeating the Big Three
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The Argentine tennis player might have won only a single Grand Slam title, but during his tennis career, he faced the big three and played numerous matches against them. Recently, in an interview with Pagina 12, the 2009 US Open champion disclosed what helped him defeat them on the tennis court.
He said, “But they are going to think that you are going to throw it out because you know that you can beat them, but it will never happen. It happened to me until I lost respect for them and understood that I was only going to have one chance. Because they give you one chance per game. Just one.”
Un @delpotrojuan íntimo, a fondo, con todos los temas que envuelven su carrera y su presente.
El día después, la ausencia de “llave y candado” en su etapa como tenista, su irrepetible estilo de juego, la Davis y el plano emocional.https://t.co/9F6LYTchpj
— Pablo Amalfitano (@AmalfiTenis) June 14, 2023
Furthermore, he also talked about how the Big 3 had the mental ability to let their opponents know that they are just going to beat them again and again, one after the other. Not only that, the Argentine tennis star defeated Nadal six times, Djokovic four times, and the Swiss maestro literally seven times on the tennis court.
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The Tower of Tandil found a way to beat the top three despite having a lower head-to-head record than all three players. By doing so, he defeated the Swiss ace in the finals to win the Grand Slam championship in 2009 and these remarkable Grand Slam statistics set him apart from the rest.
When Juan Martin defeated Federer to win a Grand Slam title
Juan Martin del Potro entered the 2009 US Open as the sixth-ranked tennis player, and he defeated third seed Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the semi-finals. However, the championship match was unexpected; the 34-year-old tennis player defeated, at that time, five-time US Open winner Federer to win his first Grand Slam trophy.
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Juan Martin had never beaten the Swiss master before the US Open final. Well, this victory made him step up in the tennis game, by defeating a big-three tennis player. However, the Argentine tennis player retired last year, from the tennis circuit.
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