After stunning Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon this year, he then suffered a huge letdown in the following round in a tired loss to Lucas Pouille of France.
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The giant Argentine had also defeated the 12-time major victor in the bronze medal match at the London Olympics in 2012. No doubt this is one of the toughest losses in my life and in my career. He quietly admitted after the match that he may not be handling this loss as well as others.
“It’s not the first or the last time that I have lost a tennis match”, the Serb said. “Not easy to handle”.
In the doubles, the Murrays saved six match points, and wasted five set points, in an epic second-set tie-break before Bellucci and Sa eventually completed the win.
He would have achieved the career golden slam by earning a singles gold medal.
But the story is del Potro’s win.
Sunday began with 25 mph winds that delayed the start of play on eight of Rio’s nine tennis courts for about 2 hours, and then came so many startling outcomes.
“At the decisive moments, he just came up with some extraordinary tennis, and I have to congratulate him”, said the top-seeded Djokovic.
But Juan Martin del Potro, or “Delpo”, as his friends called him, played like a world’s No. 1, as well.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, of France, winces in pain as a trainer attends to his injured right foot during a match against Gilles Muller, of Luxembourg, at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.
Unfortunately, the 27-year-old del Potro has spent years recovering from multiple surgeries.
The Argentinian, ranked 141st in the world, spent 40 minutes prior to his big game living out an actual nightmare situation, after becoming stuck in a lift in the Athlete’s Village with no phone reception or emergency call options.
After the rescue act, handball player Fede Pizarro tweeted a picture of him with Del Potro and team-mate Guille Milano. “This week I’m just going slowly, trying to get better every day”. Djokovic finally got on the scoreboard and took two of the next three points, but Del Potro capped off the upset with a fortuitous victor off the net cord.
“I still can’t believe I beat Djokovic and had to play again so soon”.
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Del Potro produced a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Portugal’s Joao Sousa, before heading back out on court with partner Maximo Gonzalez and getting beaten by Marc Lopez and Nadal 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
