By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday July 26, 2020
After competing at Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown in the South of France this weekend, Grigor Dimitrov has opened up about what he has gone through since testing positive for Covid-19.
More: Dimitrov Tests Positive for Covid-19
“It’s still not easy, I think, to recover,” Dimitrov said. “The virus was hard on me. I stayed home for about a month. I was not breathing well, I was not feeling well, tired. All the symptoms. I had no taste, no smell, everything that you can possibly think.”
Dimitrov says he’s just trying to keep progressing right now.
“You just don’t know,” he said. “One day I feel really well, and I have about four hours to be out but then all of the sudden I just completely shut down, take a nap, or just rest.”
Did he worry for the worst?
“Of course, you are alone 20 days for about 24 hours a day. You can do the math," he said. "I’ve spent about 5,000 hours by myself (he meant 500). It doesn’t matter how strong you are, I think as a person, athlete, or anything, it’s inevitable not to get some bad thoughts in your head.”
Dimitrov says that everybody needs to take precautions: Covid-19 is real.
“We should not underestimate the power of the mental state that everybody [feels]. This thing is real, if we take precautions and everybody is safe, then things will get better quicker.”
Dimitrov was the first player to report a positive test after taking part in the Adria Tour. He played two matches at UTS this weekend, losing them both (Gasquet and Lopez), but seemed to gradually improve over the two days.