Dimitrov, the tennis player who did not want to be Federer | Tennis | Sports

For years, Grigor Dimitrov has been crying out for freedom. He simply wanted to be Grigor, not Roger. Much less that Baby Federer. “I’m tired of this. In fact, I’m fed up. I was compared to him too soon. At first I liked him, it was fun, but then he became annoying and somehow he ended up hurting me. “I don’t think all that would help a junior like me,” said the Bulgarian when the little song was already playing too loudly and had taken hold of him, a delightful one-handed backhand tennis player with a prodigious technique that, obviously, he never achieved nor will ever achieve. be Roger Federer. Mission impossible for him, mission impossible for anyone who tries it. On the other hand, today he breathes a sigh of relief because he is already Dimitrov, a player freed from nicknames and who, over thirty, is once again reaching his peak of form after having gone through a valley of gloom and frustrated expectations.

“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself for what’s happened the last few years. That I have missed opportunities? Yes, too many. That I have made mistakes? Yes, too many. “There comes a point when you have to accept everything that has been thrown at you and move forward,” he noted in November, when he had begun to offer solid indications that he, Dimitrov, will never become like the genius, but he will be a formidable tennis player who, having overcome all the doubts, all the criticisms and the successive physical ailments that somatized his body due to mental anxiety, is capable of writing his own story. The present smiles on him, he dazzles in Miami — where this Sunday (8:00 p.m., Movistar +) he will debate with the Italian Jannik Sinner for the title — and his wonderful game has returned him to a place from which he surely should never have left.

Six years later, Dimitrov appears again in the top-10. She left him at the end of 2018 and since then 260 weeks full of twists and turns have passed; Only the Frenchman Gilles Simon (308) and the Catalan Albert Costa (264) took longer than him to return to the circuit’s top floor. Before beginning to descend, the Bulgarian had won the Masters Cup and a Masters 1000, in Cincinnati, also in 2017, and managed to rise to third place on the world list. But success was followed by lack of definition, and his tennis lost steam until it disappeared from the first line of the showcase and was lost in a no man’s land, with the fan trusting that sooner or later he would find the compass to return.

“I have not returned, I simply never left,” he stated last year in Paris-Bercy, where his progression was confirmed with access to the final, in which he lost against the Serbian Novak Djokovic. At that moment he became excited under the towel. “I no longer have to prove anything to anyone, I am in my own fight; What I do is exclusively by and for me. Every tennis player has their times, and perhaps the final stretch of my career is my golden years,” he conceded that afternoon in Paris, downplaying the score and giving it to the process, understanding that his good performance was far above whether he won or not. of the trophy.

That night in Madrid

Gone, then, are those times in which he was pursued and hammered by that Baby Federer, due to the aesthetic similarity with the Swiss. “Do I really look like a baby to you?” He said in 2019 to a spectator who reminded him of his nickname during a game, just when he was going to serve. Once the mental clouds were overcome, he undertook a series of changes that also translated into the physical. With a magnificent athlete’s build, tall (1.88), wiry and strong, he got rid of the bandana that the Swiss also wore, replaced in his clothing the sports signature that the Basel player wore for almost his entire career and abandoned the line sober by colorful models, wanting to stand out from the shadow that was above them.

Thus, little by little, he has been forging his own identity that has restored his confidence. Today he wears a backwards cap, as if he has rejuvenated, and scores brilliant victories like the one he achieved in 2013 against Novak Djokovic at the Caja Mágica. That night, at dawn, the character who put him in chains was born. He was 21 years old, he was 28th in the world. “You don’t win with talent alone,” he explained to journalists; “People’s screams are something new to me.” Now free, he rides and inner peace translates into an extraordinary game. He won the Brisbane title in January – the ninth of his career, in which he has not crossed the barrier of the semi-finals in the majors— and now he has the opportunity to rise to prominence in Miami, the biggest stage.

“Believe in him again,” says one of his coaches, the Venezuelan Daniel Vallverdú. “I have many tools, but I have to make sure when I should use each one. I think the diversity of my tennis scares rivals, but you have to be able to do well in crucial moments,” says the man from Jaskovo, who these days has knocked down heavyweights like Hubert Hurkacz (9th) on the route to the final. ), Alexander Zverev (5th) and Carlos Alcaraz, who, the Spaniard said, was made to feel like a 13-year-old child due to his inability to counteract the storm of blows. “He was extremely clear about what he wanted to do,” he said. “I play tennis better now,” Dimitrov says. So, simply: Grigor Dimitrov.

You can follow The USA Print in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

_