Dimitrov Loving Life, Tennis, and Chances

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Dimitrov Loving Life, Tennis, and Chances

There’s a wide open draw at the Australian Open—have you heard?—but Grigor Dimitrov isn’t approaching this year’s Australian Open any differently than he would if Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic were still in the draw.

Though the two top seeds have failed to reach the quarterfinals at a major for the first time since the 2004 French Open, Dimitrov, wiser and more mature than he was the last time he progressed this far at a major, knows that it’s best to keep the blinders on and break it down one match at a time.

“Obviously there's been a lot of talk going on around those two guys exiting the tournament, but, I mean, you should never look at it that way, the draw is open,” he said. “What does that mean? I mean, just two guys are out of the draw. Okay, big deal.

“For sure it's different. I'm not saying that it's not. But in the same time, we saw that everyone can beat everyone. If you follow your own path and the way you're playing, the belief that you have, anything can happen.”

Dimitrov has built on a strong finish to 2016 after pairing with coach Dani Vallverdu, winning nine straight matches including three Top 10 wins in a row to claim the Brisbane title.

But he’s not getting ahead of himself.

“Right now I think it's just important to focus one match at a time, enjoy it, embrace it,” he said after defeating Denis Istomin in four sets to claim his spot alongside David Goffin in the quarterfinals. “I mean, I'm so thankful to be playing all these matches on such big courts. The crowd has been amazing. So it's an unbelievable feeling.”

Dimitrov is 25 now, and though many thought he’d have broken through and won a Grand Slam or at least become a steady Top-10 player, he’s done things on his own timetable.

During his press conference on Monday, the affable Bulgarian fielded a question about his younger years. He had a high-profile romance with Maria Sharapova and when that was done, another with pop singer Nicole Scherzinger. Dimitrov has always been an embracer of all that life has to offer, but he says that he is learning how to better compartmentalize his professional and personal lives.

“I always try to keep whatever else outside the court,” he said. “I think when I was younger, I was struggling to kind of differentiating love from a personal love or a tennis love or whatever else, for sure. You know, there was time, a period, that I wasn't, like, kind of sure how to deal with both things in the same time. But you learn. I guess we grow. I mean, I don't want to say I've learned from my mistakes, but I've learned myself a little bit better. I think that helps me.”

What would help Dimitrov from a tennis perspective is a return to a major semifinal. Since he burst on the scene and upset Andy Murray to reach the Wimbledon semifinals in 2014, he has not returned to that stage of a major.

He is 4-0 against Goffin but they have not met since 2014 and the Belgian is now the higher-ranked player after making significant strides in his game since the beginning of 2015.

“He's very dangerous all over the court,” he said. “He can hit quite a few shots, moves well on the court, reads the game well. It's going to be a tough match, there's no doubt about that. So as I said, I just need to focus on my game and just do my thing out there. This is what I'm going to be focusing on.

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