Juan Martin del Potro didn’t get a lot of sleep after his first-round upset of Novak Djokovic on Sunday night at the Olympic Games in Rio.
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Because of wrist injuries, del Potro had gone two and a half years without participating in a Grand Slam tournament until playing at Wimbledon, so one big question is what his fitness level is.
Instead, his record remains just a singles bronze from the 2008 Games in Beijing.
“I felt once again I had the capability to play against the best in the world”, he said.
Elsewhere, Novak Djokovic admitted his shock first-round defeat to Juan Martin Del Potro was “one of the toughest losses of his life” as his hopes of claiming Olympic gold in the men’s singles went up in smoke.
But Del Potro was not pleased with the ruckus in the audience and he took a cheeky swipe at football when discussing the events afterwards.
Still, he produced a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Portugal’s Joao Sousa with the help of 16 forehand winners, each more thunderous than the last. “I played really well at the end of the match and I think that was the key”.
The year before that, he won his first (and so far only) Grand Slam title at the 2009 US Open. He finished the set with as statement, holding to love to take the opener 6-3 in 46 minutes, winning 10 of the last 11 points and showing no ill effects of the emotional win over Djokovic the night before.
Williams, sporting a patriotic Stars and Stripes hairband on centre court, will next face Alize Cornet, the Frenchwoman who defeated her three times in 2014, including at Wimbledon. He was having no trouble holding his own serve, Del Potro not getting to deuce in any service game in the set.
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There was one blot on the day for Murray as he and brother Jamie were knocked out of the men’s doubles by Brazil’s Andre Sa and Thomaz Bellucci. He confirmed his participation in the mixed draw with Garbine Muguruza.
