Dimitrov beat Alcaraz, tonight he faces Zverev and could play his third final in three months. The ups and downs of the “new Federer”, for his one-handed backhand, considered the beauty of the circuit, for his love affairs with Sharapova, Scherzinger and Ghenea
For those who, years ago, fell in love with his sublime one-handed backhand – an increasingly rare commodity in today’s tennis -, Grigor Dimitrov
he never left. But it is clear, and not only the results say it, how since last year the Bulgarian has pressed the reset button to reset and show himself again as he once was. What in the 2017 he was able to win the ATP Finalsbeating Goffin in the final and climbing the rankings to the bottom step of the podium behind Nadal And Federer.
Grigor can grab another final tonight: if he beat Sascha Zverev in the semi-final of the upper part of the Miami Masters 1000 draw – the lower part is Sinner-Medvedev -, Dimitrov would return for the first time between the top 10 players in the rankingsomething that hasn’t happened since 2018. Last night’s match against Carlos Alcaraz (“On the pitch he made me feel like a 13 year old”, the Spaniard’s comment) was a surprise, but only because on the other side of the net there was a car.
The Dimitrov of the last 12 months he’s playing with anyone, and Alcaraz, before the defeat in Miami, also remembers the one in another Masters 1000, the one in Shanghai. In that case they were in the round of 16, with Grigor only giving up in the semi-final against Rublev. He would have done even better in Paris-Bercy, defeated only in the final by Djokovic. However, there is a crater of several years in Dimitrov’s career, who in less than three months of 2024 could already play his third final: he won in Adelaide against Holger Rune, he lost in Marseille to the Frenchman Hugo Humbert.
He was supposed to become the “new Federer”, precisely because of that one-handed shot so similar to that of the Swiss god, but Dimitrov at a certain point got lost, no longer finding continuity and slipping in August 2019 to number one 78 in the rankingbefore another electric shock with the semi-final at Flushing Meadows lost against Daniil Medvedev.
But Dimitrov is like that, take it or leave it: he collapses, then goes back up, he’s right in his place DNA. Her life off the pitch has always been that of the beauty of the circuit: in her sentimental CV, the story that lasted almost two years with Maria Sharapova, the one with the singer and actress Nicole Scherzinger and, more recently, the one with the model Madalina Ghenea, finished in recent months. But it is with his tennis that Grigor is making everyone fall in love again.
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March 29, 2024 (modified March 29, 2024 | 3:16 pm)
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