I hate Juan Martin Del Potro

One of the great things about tennis is that, Andy Murray matches aside, its very easy to watch without desperately wanting somebody to win or lose. This does mean you can enjoy the match without being too bothered by the result. While I am always quite satisfied if a certain T Berdych or Robin S lose early, it doesn't provide me with any great emotions of anger if they go on to win a tournament. However, there is one exception to this, and that exception is Juan Martin Del Potro.

                       I can only hope this was match point against and the ball hit the net

In every single tournament, I am quite happy for anybody to win except this man. The sooner he gets knocked out of a tournament, the better. However it is very clear that I am in the minority here. Many were delighted that he won the US Open in 2009 and were hoping for him to take over from Nadal and Federer and dominate. People often say what a real shame it was that he suffered such a serious wrist injury (which it was, to be fair, but I can't say I was too upset). So I thought I should look to see if there were any proper reasons to hate him.

1. Murray and Del Potro have an argument

This was an incident that occurred in Rome in 2008. To cut a long story short, Del Potro takes offence at Murray and decides to insult his mother. This certainly seems like a good starting point. Except that in the end the whole exchange is absolutely hilarious. Murray gets slightly aggressive and threatens with "you ever speak about my mum again", before realising exactly how big Del Potro is and deciding that he will just tell on him to the umpire.  The umpire then gets very headmaster like and tells Del Potro off, who just sits there staring directly at something the entire time. In conclusion, the whole thing is fairly amusing, the players since made up and its not a reason to hate him.

2. Del Potro challenges approximately seven years after the ball lands out


There will be more on the US Open later, but during the final Del Potro took a habit to challenging line calls later and later. Eventually Federer lost the plot. You will see that Del Potro hits the ball out approximately 16 seconds into that clip. Both players move to sit down. A full 11 seconds later, Del Potro decides to challenge the call. This causes Federer to launch into a hilarious rant, made even better by the strains of the "Theme to Taxi" appearing over the end of it. Federer does go onto win the set, but is rattled enough to lose the match overall. While the umpire should do better, its very poor form for Del Potro to challenge so late.

3. Del Potro imagines a cup falling from the stand


There is no video evidence of this but I definitely saw it happen. Again at the US Open Final, Federer serves an ace. Del Potro complains that a cup fell from behind where Federer was serving and if that hadn't happened, he would definitely have reached the serve and hit an unstoppable winner. TV footage did not really show there was a cup. So I choose to believe there wasn't a cup and Del Potro was resorting to any excuse to get back into the game.

4. The fact Del Potro won the 2009 US Open


To be fair to Del Potro, he played an excellent tournament in 2009. He dismantled the in form Cilic and destroyed Nadal in the semi finals. Then, in the final, he was awful. He was very quickly a set and 4-5 down. Federer was serving for the second set and was going to complete a dull straight sets victory. Except Federer decided to inexplicably bottle it, let Del Potro back in and proceed to fold under a string of late challenges, imaginary cups and suddenly competent tennis. Having never won a Master Series Event, Del Potro had just been handed his first Grand Slam title.

5. Del Potro and Federer combine to knock Murray out the World Tour Finals

                               Plotting how best to annoy Andy Murray

The 2009 World Tour Finals ended up being incredibly complicated towards the end. Three players were tied and it was going to come down to games won. At 2-6, 7-6, 3-4, Federer merely had to hold his serve and Murray would proceed. Del Potro then picks the absolute perfect time (for him) to break and Murray is knocked out by one game. That was pretty much the final straw.

So in conclusion, Del Potro is my least favourite tennis player on account of some late challenges, winning a Slam with a reasonable amount of luck and finding the most frustrating way possible to knock Andy Murray out of the World Tour Finals. A convincing argument I think you will agree. If not, here is a video of Del Potro  hitting a child.