Brett Connors, the son of tennis Hall of Famer and host of the “Advantage Connors” podcast recently spoke with his five-time U.S. Open champion father about Juan Martin del Potro’s farewell match in Argentina against Novak Djokovic. In setting up the conversation, Brett Connors spoke of his long-time respect and like for del Potro and the injuries that curtailed his career and continue to impact his life.
“Everyone knows Delpo is probably my favorite guy from the last 15 or 20 years in tennis and always rooted for him,” said Brett. “Wwe’ve talked about it before with his injuries. But he released a video a couple of weeks ago where he talks about his injuries and I always thought it was his wrist. His wrist was the one that gave him so much problems. He had to change his whole backhand…but he was saying that it was his knee. And he’s had something like six or seven or eight knee surgeries trying to fix it, trying to do that. And he’s had to pay a small fortune at all the different so-called extra surgeons and blah, blah, blah. And he was talking that he might have to get a prosthesis, and he’s a 35-year-old man.”
Del Potro’s trials, tribulations and triumphs are all documented in the book “Juan Martin del Potro: The Gentle Giant” by Sebastian Torok, for sale and download here: https://www.amazon.com/Juan-Martin-del-Potro-Gentle/dp/1937559920/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22V2UDTZA55OP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vDIXu4Zlbip_KmRR3WL5-hfKssky_QoXX4nKq5kpOW1JYystkAYdFmeAlYZB6bY2fMC0N5K3IrVeCVbgr29-gqsX9jNMt3zq48I4sgS7TeeRAss95150pt_Z3p8OCcBnVpzVazIziss6c2QUJ67YgwmfbXVx8YKMh2N2M_XbOrQvGYWr8ih2E1febNOl1UWIx3NDMNEaDlsA-AsFYrV96rMsUppK0hSAng7mcZaKk4E.Vg7pogjj-vUd-Bvzo-3zqlNlXXobX1o1yOBGbbUqqmU&dib_tag=se&keywords=juan+martin+del+potro&qid=1734484771&sprefix=%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-1
Brett Connors continued about del Potro’s video, “And so he did this leading up to this event where he invited Djokovic down to play in an exhibition with I think him and (Gabriela) Sabatini and maybe a couple other players. And as this farewell match and Djokovic showed up, he was there and it was a big event. It was a really big success. And I just thought that was crazy that he’s talking about that at 35 years old, like the surgeries and the people he can go to and has access to that somehow he’s ended up in this situation and it just kind of broke my heart.”
You can read what Jimmy Connors said about del Potro here: https://worldtennismagazine.com/archives/24224
