Del Potro made his comeback from a knee injury at the Delray Beach Open, where he lost a tight three setter in the quarterfinal to Mackenzie McDonald. Unfortunately, in both his round of 16 and quarterfinal matches, he was seen consistently holding his injured knee. One has to wonder how ready he is for his latest comeback. There were obvious problems with his movement throughout the tournament – his first since he injured his knee at the Shanghai Masters in 2018.

Delpo announced on his Instagram that he’d need a bit more time to recover after the Delray tournament, and that he’d miss defending his title at the Mexican Open in Acapulco. This is quite unfortunate given how much love he gets down in Mexico. Nevertheless, he said he’d be ready to defend his Indian Wells title in March.

It’s quite unfortunate that Delpo keeps getting injured time and time again, especially after the banner year he had in 2018. Everyone was looking forward to a 100% fit Del Potro in 2019. However, as usual, that was not to be. Nevertheless, you can’t take away what he did in 2018. He won the Mexican Open and Indian Wells, reached the final of the US Open and finished the year ranked number five in the world. That was a phenomenal achievement considering two years ago, he didn’t even know if he’d be able to come back from subsequent wrist operations.

It is kind of ridiculous to look at Del Potro’s trajectory. After finishing number five in 2013, he pretty much missed almost three years due to injury (2014-2016). Delpo is no ordinary player though and has shown he can come back stronger than ever after injury. So, if the past is any indication, 2019 should be a great year for Delpo. Also, this latest injury is not due to the wrists, which he has had a total of four operations. Hopefully we’ll see a lot of this tower of a man throughout 2019 much like we did in 2018.