Juan Martin Del Potro Announces Big News For Australian Open 2020

The Argentine tennis player Juan Martin Del Potro has announced his participation at Australian Open 2020. It will be his first ATP tournament after his right knee surgery in June. Former Aussie Open two-time quarterfinalist Del Potro will be using the protected ranking for the Melbourne major 2020.

What is a protected ranking?

The protected ranking is a system by which tennis players are helped by the ATP when they are returning from a long-term injury. When players are injured for a minimum of six months, they can request protected ranking. Since ranking points expire after a year, one injury can all but strip players of their career’s work.

The player can use their protected ranking for a limited number of times to enter tournaments’ main draws when returning from injury when their reduced official ranking is insufficient. The protected ranking is calculated on their average ranking during the first three months of the injury.

In June Del Potro was ranked World Number 11. When he withdrew from US Open 2019 he was ranked 12th in the world. However, at present his ATP ranking is World Number 123.

Del Potro did not play at the Australian Open 2019. At that time he was recovering from his right kneecap injury which he suffered during Shanghai Masters 2018. This year he commenced his season at Delray Beach Open 2019. 

Del Potro played a few rollercoasters matches during the clay-court tour this season but the grass-court season was undone pertaining to his injury at Queens Championships.

Juan Martin Del Potro also called off the scheduled exhibition match against Roger Federer in Argentina in the month of November due to the rehabilitation period. He was not fit to play professional tennis in November 2019. 

Before that in the month of August, he announced his return to the ATP circuit at Intrum Stockholm Open in Sweden and the Erste Bank Open 500 in Austria. However it couldn’t take place as his body was not in a perfect form to play tennis. Currently Juan Martin Del Potro is training hard and is determined to get back to his former niche.