Grigor Dimitrov

Bulgarian Tennis Star Dimitrov Quits Sydney over Exhaustion

The best Bulgarian male tennis player Grigor Dimitrov has decided to leave the tournament in Sydney, Australia with a USD 434 000 prize fund.

The motive behind the decision is exhaustion. Dimitrov did not manage to recover on time after his two matches Friday at the Hopman Cup tournament in the city of Perth, Australia. Immediately after the games, the young Bulgarian tennis star had to board the plane for a five-hour flight from Perth to Sydney, where the qualifiers kicked off after he landed.

Saturday morning Dimitrov easily defeated Estonian Jürgen Zopp in a three-set match, 6:1, 6:7(6), 6:2, but fatigue forced him to leave his second match in Sydney, versus Adam Feeney. Dimitrov started playing, however, he quit the match in the first set, when he was losing it by 0-3.

This was the fourth game for the Bulgarian in less than 24 hours. On Friday, Dimitrov won in Perth against world number eight Mardy Fish of the US, upsetting the American in just 2-0 sets (6:2, 6:1) and in less than an hour.

Immediately after that Dimitrov and the best Bulgarian female player, Tsvetana Pironkova, defeated the US 2-1 in their last Hopman Cup encounter, thus finishing second in Group A.

The next tournament he will participate in is Australian Open, which begins on January 16.

Dimitrov, 19, is from the southern Bulgarian city of Haskovo.

http://bit.ly/yvmtDs

Grigor Dimitrov has split with his coach Peter McNamara.

Nineteen-year-old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov made an impressive debut at the US Men’s Clay Court Championship, dismissing former World No. 5 Rainer Schuettler 6-0, 6-2 on Monday to earn his first tour-level victory since the Australian Open. Schuettler, 15 years Dimitrov’s senior, managed to win just one service game during the 63-minute match.

“I had a very good start. I was able to break him down pretty early,” said the eighth-seeded Dimitrov, who snapped a five-match losing streak at the tour-level. “It was just a matter of time. I’m going to develop my game in a better way.”

Dimitrov entered Houston at a career-high No. 70 in the South African Airways 2011 ATP Rankings after qualifying for his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament two weeks ago in Miami. He also qualified for the main draw at the Australian Open and the ATP World Tour 500 tournaments in Rotterdam and Dubai earlier this season, and claimed the Challenger title last month in Cherbourg (d. Mahut).

The two girls smiled at each other. Then they looked backed at Court 10, at the player in the yellow shirt with the silky one-handed backhand and the very familiar service motion and the easy way with a forehand winner. Then the girls looked at each other again. They smiled again. They were having a Grigor Dimitrov moment.

The Grigor Dimitrov Moment: It sounds like a bad lounge-band name. I can see it now: A tall man with a receding hairline and a black goatee is hunched over a saxophone in a half-empty basement bar in Philly or Prague. But no, a Dimitrov Moment is what we got in Melbourne on Monday. In front of those two smitten girls, as well as a fair number of tennis cognescenti, the 19-year-old Bulgarian won his first match at a Grand Slam by routing Andrey Golubev, an otherwise perfectly respectable pro who is currently ranked No. 36 in the world. It wasn’t just that Dimitrov beat Golubev like a drum, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2; it’s that he outclassed him. He was the elegant tennis aristocrat slumming it for a few moments with the clumsy hoi polloi.

Players win their first matches at Grand Slams all the time, of course. But Dimitrov hasn’t been just another player since 2008. That year he won junior Wimbledon and the U.S. Open back to back, turned pro, and was promptly pushed into the pole position among the contenders for Next Big Tennis Thing.

And that’s as far as he got until today. The two years since Dimitrov’s junior triumphs have been hard ones. He was lost on the Challenger circuit, playing in Thailand one week and Geneva the next. He dropped out of the Top 200. The early talk of a touring entourage faded. When I spoke to him by phone from somewhere between Katmandu and Timbuktu last year, he sounded humbled. “I just have to keep going and hope it turns around,” he said.

It turned around in 2010. Dimitrov began working with former doubles standout Peter McNamara of Australia. He won six Challengers. He moved into the Top 200, then the Top 150, then up to 105, which is where he started this tournament. He’s not talking about hopes anymore; he’s talking about goals. Big goals.

“We’re aiming high," Dimitrov said today. "We want to be in the Top 40 by the end of the year." Maybe he’ll get the old entourage together again, too.

What changed? Nothing too specific or miraculous, it seems. “I’m more mature on court now,” Dimitrov said. “I have to accept it didn’t come as fast. I know I have to take it step by step.”

But the new confidence hasn’t vanquished the old frustration just yet. Dimitrov shoved an umpire at a Challenger in Helsinki last month, but was not suspended.

“It’s something that happened,” said Dimitrov, who described himself as “not an easy person” all the time. “It will never happen again.”

The talent, the temper, the early professional disappointment. Does this lineup remind you of someone else? Yes, Dimitrov appears to be taking a page or two from Roger Federer. Make that three or four or five pages. The Bulgarian says Federer is his hero, and he’s clearly spent a good deal of time watching him play.

The similarities in their games are uncanny. The relaxed start and sudden upward burst on the serve. The long extension on the backhand, and the extra, easy snap of topspin on the forehand. Dimitrov even sets up for his backhand the same way as Federer. Both of them, when they have the time, turn their bodies to the net and place their feet far apart for balance.

It’s one thing to copy the mechanics. It’s another to get the results—to catch the spirit rather than just the letter of the Federer law. Dimitrov does that too, and he did it today to devastating effect. Both Dimitrov and Federer seem to play farther from their torsos than their opponents, with a sweep to their strokes that lets them get more of their arms and bodies into their shots—they get out their own way. Golubev was handcuffed by Dimitrov’s inside-out forehand, as well as his down the line backhand. At 4-2 in the third set, Dimitrov hit three returns of serve that landed on the baseline, and which Golubev dumped into the net. After the last one, Golubev shrugged as if to say, “Forget it. Nothing I can do about that. Get me out of here.”

Dimitrov moves with something of the ease of Federer, and as I said, his way of playing has that loose, high-class Federer sheen (whether he's actually as fast is yet to be determined). This begs the question: Did Dimitrov borrow some of his talent from Federer? Or did his mimicry hold him back from developing what would have been his own genius? You can’t just move like Federer because you want to.

Would the younger man have been as good—or maybe better—if he had never seen the older man play? Would we all be better if we could make our games as close to Federer’s as possible? It’s one thing to copy a player’s general style. Bjorn Borg launched a million baseliners. It’s another to copy—or internalize; Dimitrov understandably doesn’t like the copycat label—the idiosyncrasies of one man’s genius. John McEnroe had no imitators.

None of this means the Bulgarian is any kind of genius; Frank Dancevic's game is also reminiscent of Federer's, and he's never cracked the Top 20. What matters for tennis fans is this: If you like to watch Roger Federer play, you’re going to like to watch Grigor Dimitrov. If, like me, you love Federer’s game but have gotten tired of his Sire Jacket lordliness over the years, you’ll like him even more, because it’s going to be a while before Dimitrov lords it over anyone. I spent a set at Court 10 watching Dimitrov-Golubev today, long enough to see that it wasn’t going to be a competitive match. So I traipsed to the other side of Melbourne Park, which is not around the corner, to watch some of Victor Troicki, another guy I’m interested this season. Or at least I thought I was interested in him. Compared to Dimitrov, Troicki’s game seemed limited and earthbound. So I got up and made the trek back to Court 10, just for the pleasure of seeing the kid play.

The two girls were there, and they were still smiling. So was Dimitrov. When he won the last point, he pumped his fist and flashed a wide grin. Then he looked at his coaches and smiled some more. He couldn’t stop smiling. He’d won a Grand Slam match. It was a Grigor Dimitrov moment to savor.

Bulgarian posters on Dimitrov fan forum on MTF suggest that Grigor is already in Australia training, and will try to enter Sidney and onto the Aus Open. Given this he possibly felt that playing Chennai then flying out to Aus wasn't smart.

Grigor Dimitrov has withdrawn from the Chennai Open.
I can't find a reason as yet.

Courtesy of http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisbevan/2010/12/following_in_federers_footstep_1.html

Following in Federer's footsteps

Handling the hype is part of the job for any talented young tennis player but being labelled 'the new Roger Federer' and touted as the next big thing in the men's game means Grigor Dimitrov has more to deal with than most.

Why all the attention? Well, in a sport desperate for new blood to challenge the established order - the same four players began and ended the year at the top of the ATP rankings, and only three men other than Federer or Rafael Nadal have won a single Grand Slam since the start of 2005 - the 19-year-old Bulgarian is widely seen as potentially the next big star of a new generation of tennis talent.

Dimitrov's burgeoning reputation is down to his rapid rise from outside the top 350 to the fringes of the top 100 in the world over the last six months, and the clutch of Futures and Challenger events he won on the way to becoming the world's top-ranked male teenager at the end of 2010.

And the resemblance to Federer, who incidentally has been his idol since childhood, is easy to see too. On court, they share the same sweeping single-handed backhand, exciting attacking game and even a trademark bandana.

Off it, their professional careers were both launched by the same coach, Peter Lundgren, who says Dimitrov is the more talented. No pressure there then.

So, how does it feel to be seen as the successor to your hero? "There are worse things to be called!" Dimitrov, who is fluent in English and as articulate as he is amiable, told me last week from Dubai, where he was relaxing at the end of an eventful year.

"Of course it is nice to hear it, and all these other things, but there is only one reaction I can really give: I am the number 106 in the world, and Federer is the best tennis player alive. It is very hard for me to compare us in any other way.

"I loved watching Roger when I was growing up, and I still watch him when I can, no matter what, because you can learn so much. Of course there are some similarities with how we play, with my backhand and serve, but I never aimed for that, because my father taught me how to play tennis and everything came quite naturally to me.

"I've met Roger a few times but I have not really spoken to him properly yet, just to say things like 'how are you' or 'good luck' but nothing more. It is tough to get near to players like that, because I haven't been at many tournaments with him yet."

Dimitrov is pretty confident that will change in the next few months. He thinks tennis is "a simple game for intelligent people" and has set himself a clear target: "I believe I can be number one. That's my goal."

But he certainly isn't taking it for granted that he is destined for the top, because he has made that mistake before.

Those comparisons with the Swiss supremo first cropped up during Dimitrov's time as the junior world number one in 2008, after he collected the boys' titles at Wimbledon and the US Open at the age of 17.

That was expected to be the launchpad for an immediate assault on the big guns of men's Tour, especially after an impressive start to his professional career at the start of 2009 that saw him beat Tomas Berdych and take Nadal to three sets. But Dimitrov's progress soon faltered.

Looking back now, he knows why he initially found the transition from junior star to the main circuit so hard to make. "I had two great matches against Tomas and Rafa, and I thought everything was said and done to go and join the big guys," he explained. "But that is one of the tricky things about the game that you have to learn - how to play well over and over again, not just once or twice.

"It is completely different to being in a boy's tournament. You are up against men who know how to play you because they have been there before and they know every match situation. Of course you can beat a player once but you have to keep doing it, and it is a different kind of tennis too. The momentum of every match is different. It's not until you start playing them that you understand."

The expectation that accompanied his junior accomplishments increased the pressure on Dimitrov too, but he admits his attitude wasn't all it could have been.

"I got a bit lackadaisical," he said. "I didn't ease off but I kind of took a breath, which is the worst thing you can do. You have to do the opposite when you make that step up; work harder and breathe less. I let myself down a bit."

A few niggling injuries added to Dimitrov's frustration and, with his ranking stuck in the mid 300s, it appeared his promising career might be drifting. As he found out, potential does not win you many prizes in the cruel world of the ATP Tour - for every Federer or Stefan Edberg, who collected men's Grand Slams to go with their junior titles, there is a Martin Lee - the Briton who topped the boys' rankings in the mid 1990s but did not get above number 94 as a man.

So, what changed for Dimitrov to spark the dramatic upturn in his fortunes? Firstly, it was his coach. Peter McNamara replaced Lundgren in June, and sparked a remarkable run that saw 49 wins and only 13 defeats in the remainder of the year.

Dimitrov says he learned a lot from Lundgren and leaving him was not an easy decision, but it has certainly paid off. He is reluctant to discuss exactly what McNamara has got him doing differently but hinted it is his mental approach where the improvements have been made.

"He definitely hasn't tried to alter my game," Dimitrov laughs. "That was not the main issue! We have tried to work on my consistency and the details that shape the whole picture. We have our way of working, but we have to keep that private, right? We have had such a great start and we are going to carry on in the same way."

McNamara might be the man who has got Dimitrov focused and firing on all cylinders but it is still his father, Dimitar, a tennis coach back in Bulgaria, who he consults if he has a problem with any of his shots.

"I always call my dad when I need him, whether it is during a tournament or other times when I need some details regarding my technique because he was the one who showed me everything," Dimitrov added.

"I was three when I picked up a racquet properly for the first time and five when I started playing every day. That became my work, my life, my love."

He also continues to count on the Patrick Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Paris for support. Dimitrov moved there when he was 16, after two years in Barcelona working with Andy Murray's old coach Pato Alvarez, who remains a big influence too.

"I had to grow up very quickly when I went to Spain at 14," Dimitrov stated. "It is tough when you are living on your own and learning everything yourself. But it was good for me, actually - I figured a lot of things out myself and made my own decisions. I got through a lot of difficult times."

The last six months haven't been completely plain sailing either. Dimitrov had an off-court altercation with umpire Daniel Infanger in Helsinki at the end of November after losing to Ricardo Berankis in the semi-finals of his last tournament of 2010, landing himself a 2,000 euro fine and the threat of a suspension.

A clearly contrite Dimitrov did not try to make any excuses for his behaviour when I brought the incident up. "I made a mistake and I am learning from it," he said. "I have apologised to all the people - I have written to everyone involved, admitting I made a mistake and it won't happen again. Now I have moved on and I am looking forward to 2011."

It promises to be an exciting year. Dimitrov says his first goal for the next 12 months is staying injury free but the plan for the man nicknamed 'G-Force' is to maintain the recent momentum he has built up as he tests himself at a higher level.

From January, he will start playing on the ATP World Tour, a big step up from those Challenger events he has been cleaning up at, and Grand Slams are beckoning too - his current ranking is good enough to earn him direct entry into the Australian Open at the end of that month.

It is all part of the learning curve as far as Dimitrov is concerned, and he is looking forward to the next stage of his career. "Progress comes from playing more of those bigger tournaments, and maturing on court," he explained. "I might need a few years to figure things out but you learn from all the good players you are watching around you too - it will be a very interesting time."

The Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov has been charged €2000 and could face further punishment as a result of attacking an umpire at the Challenger event in Helsinki last month.

The Bulgarian, after his final four loss to Ricardas Berankis at the Helsinki Challenger, is reported to have attacked umpire Daniel Infanger away from the court before pushing the official in the chest using both of his hands.

According to one of the Finnish newspapers, an irate Dimitrov also swore at Daniel until an Italian colleague of the umpire separated the two of them.

The newspaper also reports the director of the competition saying that the Association of Tennis Professional could yet impose a more severe punishment on the contender once the incident has been further examined.

Antti Aine who is the President of the Finnish umpire's association, was extremely critical of Grigor after witnessing the argument himself.

"The immunity of the umpire is a sacred thing in sports. You can disagree with calls but this was way out of line," said Aine.

A suspension could possibly endanger Dimitrov's place in next month's Australian Open with the contender’s current ranking of world number 106 enough to secure him straight entry.

Source: Bettor.com

He also might get a ban for pushing the umpire after his sf loss vs Berankis.

After finishing the season strongly on the challenger circuit, Grigor Dimtrov has gained an automatic spot in the Chennai field with his new career high ranking. This will be Dimitrov first ATP event since accepting a Wild Card at Queens back last year.