For the last four years, men’s tennis has had Roger and Rafa, two giants who have transcended the rest of the sport.

For the past two years, the ATP Tour featured a Big Three in which Novak Djokovic joined the studs from Switzerland and Spain.

Over the past 12 months, the Big Three has allowed a fourth member to join the ranks of the elite: evident up-and-comer Andy Murray.

Now, as a sport accustomed to constant change searches for even more quality depth, it’s becoming increasingly reasonable to claim that the fifth-best player in men’s tennis–behind the Big Four but ahead of everyone else–is Juan Martin del Potro.

The 20-year-old Argentine made a strong and impressive statement on Monday, playing the equivalent of a road match in Paris by beating beloved Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four convincing sets. Del Potro’s 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4 victory, safely secured in 2 hours and 41 minutes on Court Philippe Chatrier, not only indicated how tough this South American can be; the calm conquest of the ninth-seeded Tsonga pushed “Delpo” into his third consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. With Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic no longer around in Paris, and with Andy Murray having lost in the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open, the only man who can join the Argentine as a thrice-in-a-row slam quarterfinalist is Roger Federer.

Any tennis player–if left alone with Federer on a very short short list–would obviously enjoy increased standing in the sport. For del Potro, then, it’s clear that the same man who, entering 2008, had never even reached the second week of a major has now arrived at a new and productive phase of a very promising career.

Del Potro’s match with Tsonga–the 2008 Australian Open runner-up–might have lasted four sets, but this rumble in the round of 16 was more lopsided than four-setters normally prove to be. Delpo disappointed a French crowd on the main stadium court of Roland Garros by building a fortress around his serve.

The Argentine–who hit 69 percent of his first serves–won 81 percent of his first-serve points. On the rare occasions when he had to hit a second ball, Delpo converted a whopping 71 percent of the points he played. Considering that the No. 5 seed coughed up 4 double-faults, it’s evident that as long as Delpo put the ball in play, Tsonga just couldn’t make much of a dent on his opponent’s serve. The Frenchman did break once–in the second set–but in almost three hours of slugging on red clay, a surface least conducive to service holds, Tsonga never gained more than one break point opportunity. That’s a rather astonishing statistic, especially since Delpo was playing on enemy turf against one of France’s own.



What was also notable about the fifth seed’s conquest was that the second set–originally led 5-2 by Tsonga–wound its way to a tense tiebreak the Frenchman won by a bare-minimum margin of two points. Given the even-steven status of the match on the scoreboard, plus the energy that coursed through the French crowd, it would have been completely understandable if del Potro lost confidence or allowed negative energy to flow through his body. Instead, the South American thumped Tsonga 6-1 to retake control. The fourth set moved along on serve through the first eight games until, at 4-all, del Potro–smelling the finish line as any cold-blooded tennis assassin should–converted yet one more break point, his sixth in 13 chances, to gain a 5-4 lead and then serve out the match just minutes later.

Nadal, Djokovic and Murray have all done more in their careers, as has world No. 6 Andy Roddick (who probably still deserves to be viewed as the fifth-best player on tour). With that said, Juan Martin del Potro is doing nothing to warrant a diminished or downgraded place amongst his colleagues and competitors. If he keeps cranking out quarterfinal results at major tournaments, Delpo will eventually break through to a semifinal here, and a final there.

Then, a big, bold, ballstriker from the Southern Hemisphere will head even further north in the ATP rankings race.

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