Grigor Dimitrov may consider supplanting his headband for a couple of caps at the ATP Cup this weekend.
The 28-year-old Dimitrov will wear two hats as both captain and No. 1 player for Team Bulgaria.
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Bulgaria resides in Group C of the 24-team ATP Cup. Dimitrov will face Dan Evans as Bulgaria takes on Great Britain in its opener on Friday night in Sydney.
It's a new role and a new perspective for the 2017 ATP Finals champion.
"It's challenging, no doubt about it," Dimitrov told the media in Sydney. "It's always been a dream of mine to always be kind of on the other end, and I think to be a coach is never easy.
"I don't know if I'm going to be a good coach. I can only share my experience, my thoughts with the guys."
The top eight teams from the six groups spread across Brisbane, Perth and Sydney will advance the knockout stage of the tournament set for Friday, January 10th in Sydney.
The 20th-ranked Dimitrov is preaching patience and putting health at a premium as he tries to bounce back from an injury-riddled 2019 that saw him battle a chronic shoulder injury. Still, Dimitrov upset Roger Federer to reach his first US Open semifinal last September.
"I'm not going to force myself to play too many tournaments early on and really look after the body," Dimitrov said. "That's the number one thing."
The 2017 Australian Open semifinalist will play for his third Melbourne quarterfinal in the last four years later this month.
"Clearly I haven't competed for almost the past four months of the year, and so that itself brought a lot of doubts, and dropping a lot in the ranking and so on,"Dimitrov said. "But at the same time, I was able to kind of recover as quick as possible, and hopefully now I'm at a place that can only get better. I'm really going to focus on that."
Photo credit: US Open Facebook