By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
It is kind of ironic that the launch of a book that focuses heavily on the return and recuperation from injury of Juan Martin del Potro be kind of spoiled by an injury from del Potro, right?
That’s kind of the case with our new New Chapter Press book release “Juan Martin del Potro: The Gentle Giant” by Sebastian Torok, for sale and download here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559920/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_uixtEbJHQ6TFR
When I first agreed to publish this book, which required translating the book from its original Spanish publication to English, I targeted the launch to happen at the 2019 U.S. Open. It only seemed too perfect since it was the ten-year anniversary of del Potro’s historic high-water mark in tennis when he beat Roger Federer in the U.S. Open final. For those who know me, I love anniversaries, as witnessed by me writing of the book “On This Day In Tennis History.” The 2019 U.S. Open was also one-year removed from del Potro’s second-best showing at a Grand Slam, a runner-up showing at Flushing Meadows to Novak Djokovic at the 2018 U.S. Open.
But then before Wimbledon, del Potro once again injured his knee on the grass courts at the Queen’s Club at the Fever Tree Championships. His U.S. Open was in immediate doubt – as was the buzz for my book launch. The translation process of the book was actually going a bit slow, so with that being the case, and with del Potro not likely to be in New York, we decided to postpone the launch of the book. At first, we only postponed it for a few weeks, hoping to get some pre-Christmas sales, but then with word that del Potro would probably sit out the rest of the year, we pushed the launch until February. Since del Potro had made more than one comeback to tennis at the Delray Beach Open – and it being an event he liked and was already promoted to return to – we decided to launch the book on the first day of the main draw of the event, Monday, February 17. We had plenty of time to finish the translation – conducted by an Argentinean living in Miami at the time Luis Rossi as well as from an aspiring writer and media personality Haley Hunt, a bilingual George Washington University student and tennis fan from Brookline, Mass.
With the Delray Beach Open fast approaching, I emailed the event’s assistant tournament director Ivan Baron, whom I first met in the fall of 1990 when he was a freshman tennis star at the University of Georgia and I was a senior and writing tennis for The Red & Black college newspaper. With Delray Beach being only about 90 minutes from my sort of new home in Vero Beach, Florida, this would be a prime spot to have a bigger kind of “buzz” for a book launch and perhaps the tournament could help or sell the book is some way shape or form. I also started to look if there were local books stores that could also leverage the book. Torok, the author, would not be traveling to Delray Beach, which would hurt the promotion and del Potro, while fully cooperative to Torok for the book, was not “officially” part of the book project.
Baron did get back to me and said they would be happy to discuss selling the book on site, but was cautious saying that del Potro was still injured, still not playing and it was not 100 percent sure he would indeed be healthy enough to play. Sure enough, Baron’s instincts, or intimate knowledge, were correct and it came out soon thereafter that del Potro had to endure another surgery and would miss the 2020 Delray Beach Open with his return status unknown.
So, there you have it, out buzz of a book launch was simply a press release, as seen here http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/18326 and me attending the opening weekend of the event to give out a few copies of the book to Greg Sharko of the ATP, Pete Holterman, the media director of the event, and Richard Evans, a long-time and establish tennis writer for decades. As I watched a senior doubles match on the stadium court, I took out a copy of the book from my backpack and took a photo of the book with the stadium in the background. Yes, Juan Martin del Potro did, after all, have A PRESENCE – even if just on the cover of a book – at the 2020 Delray Beach Open.
