ATP Juan Martín del Potro

Was Del Potro better than Thiem, Zverev, or Wawrinka? The Argentine weighs in on the trending game

Fernando Murciego - 2 Sep 2026
Go to comments seciton
Was Del Potro better than Thiem, Zverev, or Wawrinka? The Argentine weighs in on the trending game. Source: Getty

Juan Martín Del Potro is once again the center of one of those never-ending debates in tennis: how far did the Argentine really go, and which players from his generation can be considered superior to him?

A recent post by ESPN has presented a compelling comparison, placing the 2009 US Open champion above other names like Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, Marin Cilic, and Stan Wawrinka, while acknowledging the superiority of Andy Roddick, Andy Murray, Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin, and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

The argument is particularly interesting because Del Potro had a career marked by injuries, yet he managed to reach a level that few players from his generation could match. He finished one season as World No. 4 and reached No. 3 in the ATP ranking in 2018, in addition to winning 22 singles titles. His greatest achievement came in 2009 when he surprised the world by defeating Roger Federer in the US Open final to win the only Grand Slam of his career.

A Grand Slam champion with compelling arguments

The comparison with Thiem, Zverev, Medvedev, Cilic, or Wawrinka has, of course, many nuances. Several of them were also Grand Slam champions, and some even reached number 1 in the world. Medvedev, for instance, managed to position himself at the top of the ranking for a while, while Wawrinka won three majors.

But Del Potro has a hard-to-dispute argument: when he was healthy, he was capable of defeating anyone. His victory over Federer in New York and his great performances against Nadal and Djokovic demonstrated that his competitive ceiling was at the level of the best.

Perhaps that is the key to the debate. It's not just about titles or weeks at number one, but about assessing how much greater his career could have been without the injuries.

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, ¿Fue Del Potro mejor que Thiem, Zverev o Wawrinka? El argentino se moja con el juego de moda