At the age of 16, del Potro reached his first senior singles final at the Futures tournament in Berimbau Naucalpan, Mexico, where he lost to Darko Madjarovski. He then went on to win consecutive titles at two Future ITF Circuit events in Santiago, Chile, including the 26th International Junior tournament. In the first tournament, he beat Jorge Aguilar, and in the second, he did not drop a set in the whole tournament and defeated Thiago Alves in the final, a player ranked more than 400 places higher at the time. He won his third title in his home country by defeating Damián Patriarca, who forfeited the match, at the ITF Circuit event in Buenos Aires.