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BUENOS AIRES, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Argentine Juan Martin del Potro described his time in the 2016 Wimbledon tournament as "spectacular" on Monday.
After three years away from the tournament, del Potro went out in the third round on Sunday due to the amount of effort it cost him to return after suffering from recurrent injuries in recent times.
"I wanted to feel the tennis. After what I went through and what it cost me to return, everything that happened was spectacular. I was able to go back to what I enjoy doing," the tennis player told local daily La Nacion during an interview released Monday.
The player seemed satisfied with his performance in Wimbledon, where on July 1 he managed to defeat Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka, ranked fifth in the world, in order to progress to the third round.
Del Potro, 27, has underwent four separate surgeries in recent years for injuries sustained while playing. The first one was on his right wrist and the other three were on his left wrist.
"Some time before I was operated on for the third time, I was emotionally very low. I had tried to play in Miami (United States) and I had a very bad time on the court. I had hit rock bottom and I didn't want to go to see the doctors anymore, nor try again (to get better). These days were very difficult," said the Argentine.
Del Potro, who is currently 165th in the world rankings, said that agreeing to have the third operation to hopefully return to the tennis circuit felt like "it was the last bit of effort" he had left.
"I didn't know if it was going to be the last one (operation) or not but I didn't want to be in a plastercast once again without knowing when I would be able to play tennis again or what was wrong with me hand. However, when I decided to go into the operating room and allow them to operate on me for a third time, I knew I would play again," said del Potro.
The champion of the United States Open 2009 assured that the quarter-final of the Davis Cup against Italy later in July will be "complicated, but it is a nice challenge."
The last time del Potro played as part of the Argentina team was back in September 2012 in Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital, when he defeated Radek Stepanek in the first match of the Davis Cup semifinal. However, his team could not manage the same and the Czech Republic ended up winning the round 3-2 and going through to the final.
