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Entries in Juan Martin Del Potro (4)

1:28PM

Palm Springs Life: Slow Return Tests del Potro's Patience

By Art Spander
Palm Springs Life

He had lost, which was understandable. And given the circumstances, acceptable.

Yet, this time Juan Martin del Potro was been beaten by the man across the net, Tomas Berdych, not his own body.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Desert Publications. All rights reserved.

9:29PM

Newsday (N.Y.): Andy Murray rallies to beat Fernando Verdasco and reach Wimbledon semifinals

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — Juan Martin del Potro literally picked himself off the turf. Andy Murray, did it symbolically. Toss in Novak Djokovic's relentless pursuit of perfection and the first male from Poland ever to make Wimbledon's semifinals and you have a dramatic afternoon of a spill, some chills and in the end for the home nation, thrills.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

10:04PM

Roddick can't beat the rain

By Art Spander

NEW YORK -- What a great headline: "ROBINSON CANNOT." It was in the Post, an allusion to the Yankees' Robinson Cano, who didn't dive for a ground ball out of his reach. That was Monday. On Tuesday, it was A-Rod who could not, the other A-Rod now in this town, Andy Roddick.

Somehow, some way, it always rains here around Labor Day, during the U.S. Open tennis championships. One year it's a storm from off the coast. Another year it's the remnants of a hurricane. If you can slog it here, you can slog it anywhere.

Unless you're playing tennis, outdoors, which is what Roddick and Juan Martin del Potro did for a while, as Roddick, in his farewell, battled into the second week and the fourth round. ESPN was all over the match,  Chris Fowler, John McEnroe, the Bay Area's Brad Gilbert.

Would it be the last hurrah for the 30-year-old Roddick, Open champion in 2003, who stunningly announced on his birthday, last Thursday, that when he's out of this tournament he's out of competitive tennis? Or would Roddick continue the 130-mph serves and the drama going into the fifth round?

Neither, it turned out. An hour into the Tuesday night match, which started late, play was suspended by rain, with the match at 6-6 in the first set and Roddick ahead, 1-0, in the tiebreak.

The plan was to restart Wednesday, but thunderstorms are forecast. In the previous four years, the Open has finished on a Monday, a probability this time. When Roddick will finish is anybody's guess. He's not supposed to get past Del Potro, the No. 7 seed – Roddick, once the world's No. 1, is seeded No. 20. And should Andy defy logic, almost surely the great Novak Djokovic would be his next opponent.

But Roddick is enjoying these moments. He knows the end is near, and he is at peace with the player and the person he has become.

In this town, he's the other A-Rod, along with the Yanks' Alex Rodriguez, and that puts him in an esteemed class. The Post, the Daily News and Newsday are tabloids, the few, the proud, with sports headlines on the back page no less powerful or meaningful than those news headlines on the front page.

There’s an intensity fueled by those headlines. Every day, all 365 of them, there has to be a subject to get the fans excited, even when in truth there's nothing. The Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow issue is the stuff of dreams for the tabs. The other day in the Post, Sanchez was on the back cover and, because he apparently is dating Eva Longoria, additionally on the front. Hey, it was a holiday weekend and killings and political corruption just weren't that important.

Rodriguez, coming back to the Yankees after rehab – he had not played with New York since breaking his hand on July 24 – took the Post back cover. "IT'S UP TO A-ROD," according to the headline.

In a way, at the U.S. Open across the East River, that was also the situation. If it were not for Roddick and the awesome Serena Williams, who Monday beat the Czech brewer's daughter, Andrea Hlavackova, 6-0, 6-0 – the double-bagel as it's known – American tennis would be absent from the American Open.

Roddick, certainly, is as much a curiosity as a personality. How long can he last? Even Kim Clijsters of Belgium, who previous to Andy announced this would be her last competitive event, was in a prime seat at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where early most of the seats in the 23,000-capacity arena – prime or not – were empty.

The weather had been bad throughout the day. Maria Sharapova and Marion Bartoli only made it through four games (all of them won by Bartoli) before that match was postponed. So spectators properly were hesitant to show up, arriving late as they do for dinner in Manhattan.

The crowd was decidedly pro-Roddick, understandably when he was a homeboy against the Argentine Del Potro, and when Andy broke serve in the sixth game to lead 4-2, the biased cheers were apparent.

So was the oppressive weather, 77 degrees with 86 percent humidity, a dampness that had Del Potro – the 2009 champion – grumbling to the umpire, contending the court was slippery and then grabbing a towel to wipe the lines for emphasis.

Del Potro broke back, and so they were in a tiebreaker, but not for long as the rain returned. One point, to Roddick, and that was it.

Top-seed Roger Federer, who on Monday reached his 34th consecutive quarterfinal in a Grand Slam tournament, said of Roddick: "I’m thankful for everything he's done for the game, especially here for tennis in America.

"It's not been easy after Agassi and Sampras, Courier, Chang, Connors, McEnroe, you name it."

It hasn't been easy, but what is easy in New York, a town where Cano cannot but both A-Rods still are trying to show they can.

8:45AM

CBSSports.com: Start smiling, Argentina, your son has done the improbable

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com    

NEW YORK -- It was the night disbelief took over center court, the night fantasy overcame logic, the night Roger Federer lost control, the night a dynasty tumbled.

There's a new champion in the U.S. Open, Juan Martin Del Potro, who's still a few days from his 21st birthday but already has come of age in tennis.

Del Potro, the 6-foot-6 guy those homeboys from a meatpacking town in Argentina have nicknamed the Tower of Tandil, indeed towers over all the improbability of sport.

In an upset that must rank among the great ones ever, the Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III, Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson, Del Potro defeated Federer, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, to take America's tennis title.

When Federer, the reputed finest player in history, winner of the last five U.S. Opens in succession, hit the final shot wide on Monday night, Del Potro flopped on his back as much in bewilderment as elation. He had done what nobody believed could be done.

"My dream done, it's over," Del Potro said. "When I lay on the floor, many things come to my mind. First, my family and my friends and everything. I don't know how I can explain, because it's my dream."

No explanation is needed. We learned what we needed from the longest men's final in 21 years -- 4 hours, 6 minutes -- a brilliant display of forehands and courage, embellished by the chants, "Oh-lay, oh-lay, oh-lay, ohhhhh-lay," and the cheers of 24,821 who packed Arthur Ashe Court.

Federer, winner of a record 15 Grand Slams, was supposed to make it 16, was supposed to tie Bill Tilden's 85-year-old mark of six straight U.S. titles. It was a cinch, the 28-year-old Federer against a kid who until Monday had never been in the final of a Slam.

But something went wrong. Or went right. Del Potro, a bundle of nerves, barely could get a ball over the net in the first set. This was going to be painful. And it turned out to be. For Federer.

"I thought I had him under control the first two sets," Federer said. Already this year the one they call the Swiss Master had won the French Open -- finally breaking through -- and Wimbledon. He was going to be the first in 40 years, since Rod Laver, to win three Slam tournaments in succession. Except he didn't.

"I should never have lost so many chances," he said. "It was just a pity. I think if I win the second set, I'm in a great position to come through. Unfortunately I don't win that, and that was it."

Del Potro won that, on a tiebreak. Federer sounded like most of the men who have faced him through the last five or six years, implying what might have been, talking about the should haves and could haves. That's not the language of a champion.

"It's one of those finals maybe I look back and have some regrets about," said Federer, "but you can't have them all, can't always play your best. He hung in there. In the end he was just too tough."

Federer's failing was what normally is his strength, the serve. He was successful on only 50 percent of his first serves, compared to 65 percent for Del Potro. And while Federer had 13 aces, he also had 11 double faults.

And so for the first time, someone other than Rafael Nadal, whom Del Potro knocked out in Sunday's semifinals, beat Federer in a Grand Slam final. And now, another Argentinean has won a Slam. Guillermo Vilas won four major titles in the 1970s, including the 1977 U.S. Open.

Don't cry for them, Argentina. Stand up and cheer. The soccer team may not make the World Cup, but Del Potro is atop the world of tennis.

"I thought Juan Martin played great," said a gracious Federer. "He hung in there and gave himself chances and in the end was a better man."

In the beginning, however, you wondered if he would win a set. Not until the middle of the second set did Del Potro even have a break point, and when he got the break, Federer, as usual, broke right back.

But Del Potro fought Federer and also fought himself, winning both battles.

"When I won the second set," Del Potro said, "I think if I continue playing the same way, maybe I have chance to win. But after I lost the third set, after going a break up, I start to think bad things, you know. It was so difficult to keep trying. But the crowd helped me a lot to fight until the last point. I have to say thank you to everyone for that."

Federer didn't want to thank the people who developed the electronic line decider known as Hawk-Eye. He's never liked it. And when a Del Potro shot Federer thought was out was shown on the big screen to be in, Del Potro prevented Federer was taking a two-sets-to-none lead.

Later, in another incident, when Del Potro was going to ask for another ruling -- each player has three challenges -- he delayed and then didn't request electronic verification. Federer came over to the umpire and grumbled, "The guy has two seconds [for a decision] and he takes 10."

When chair umpire Jake Garner told Federer to be quiet, Federer, out of character, yelled back, "Don't tell me to be quiet. I'm going to talk. I don't give a spit what you say." Federer didn't say spit.

Federer had won 40 straight matches in the Open since he was beaten in 2003 by David Nalbandian. He's from, yes, Argentina. They're doing something right down there.

For the last year-and-a-half, Del Potro, who entered the Open ranked No. 6 in the world, has been doing a lot right. The question was when he could win a big one. We have the answer.

"At the beginning of the match, I was so nervous," said Del Potro, who added that he couldn't sleep the previous night and couldn't eat breakfast Monday morning.

He can dine now. He took the winner's trophy and $1.85 million in prize money and bonus money. He also took the glory, at least temporarily, from Roger Federer. If it wasn't unbelievable, it certainly was remarkable.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12207912
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.