Over the course of 2014 there has been ample talk of change in men’s tennis.  But one trend that has not changed is the amount of injuries that plague the players and disrupt the season.  A number of them were affected by major and minor niggles, including Kei Nishikori, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal, among others.  Arguably none, however, were more set back by an injury than Juan Martin del Potro.

If del Potro’s injury layoff is not the first to come to mind, it is probably because he has been more of a mere afterthought this year.  The last time he was seen in action was when he retired against Somdev Devvarman in his opening-round match in Dubai back in February.  It was just a few weeks after that loss that he announced he would undergo surgery to fix a recurring problem in his left wrist.  It was a decision that ultimately ended his season, since the Argentine recently confirmed he will not make his return to tennis until 2015.

Obviously any extended injury hiatus is detrimental to a player – a fact that del Potro knows better than most.  His career looked poised to take off after securing his lone major singles title at the 2009 US Open, but only a short few months after that, his momentum was suddenly halted.  The culprit then was surgery on his right wrist, which took him out of the game for eight months before he was deemed able to return to competitive tennis.  He is now once again faced with climbing that mountain back into the mix, but this time his forced absence may have been more costly.

Until this season, Juan Martin del Potro was considered by many to be the one man who was most apt to not only challenge the Big Four on a consistent basis, but to be the guy to break up their dominance.  That belief stemmed not only from his powerful, flat groundstrokes that made him a dangerous opponent for the best in the sport, but also his status as the only player in the better part of a decade to wrestle a major singles title away from that elite foursome.  Things have changed in 2014, however.

One of the prevalent topics this season has been a potential changing of the guard.  While three of the four members of the Big Four still won the majority of the most prestigious events, there were a few chinks in the armor.  Stanislas Wawrinka and Marin Cilic both broke through to win their maiden major titles, while Wawrinka and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also went the distance at a couple of the Masters 1000 events.  Their performances helped instill greater belief in the rest of the field, which could explain some of the shocking upsets that occurred as the season progressed.  With seemingly a little more room at the top, one has to wonder how much del Potro might have cashed in had he been physically able to compete.

At the same time, the possible shift in the men’s game could also make it harder for del Potro to rise back up the rankings.  The aura of the Big Four may have dimmed, but the flipside of that is that the rest of the field is feeling more confident.  Young guns such as Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov can smell success around the corner, while veterans like Tomas Berdych and Tsonga look to finally get their dues after waiting years for the dominance of Roger Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Andy Murray to waver.  Del Potro is no longer the primary candidate to knock off the Big Four, but rather just one of an ever-growing pack of potential title contenders.  Any fear factor he may have built is gone, and he is all but starting from scratch.

The good news for del Potro is that he has come back from a major setback like this before, so he knows that doing so now is within the realm of possibility.  Furthermore, no matter how much the landscape of the game has changed, he will still enter 2015 knowing he has one of the most penetrating power games in the sport.  All of that said, del Potro probably feels the sting of the golden opportunities lost in 2014 and knows there will be greater challenges to overcome as he makes a return to tennis following wrist surgery for the second time.  It will be interesting to see how he copes with his comeback as the season begins.