Het Grigor Dimitrov topic: toekomstig angstgegner van Nadal.

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Grigor Dimitrov (born May 16, 1991, in Haskovo) is a tennis player from Bulgaria.

Junior career

In 2006 he won the Orange Bowl U16 boys singles[1] and was later named the Eddie Herr International 2007 Rising Star.[2]

In 2007, Grigor was the finalist at the Orange Bowl U18 boys singles, losing to Ričardas Berankis of Lithuania. Alongside Vasek Pospisil, he reached the 2007 U.S. Open doubles final, falling to Jonathan Eysseric and Jérôme Inzerillo.

He began the 2008 Grand Slam season with a quarterfinal showing at Roland Garros, losing to Poland's Jerzy Janowicz in three sets. However he went on to win Wimbledon after defeating Henri Kontinen of Finland, 7-5 6-3 in the final. He won the title without dropping a set despite playing with a shoulder injury throughout the tournament. The victory saw him join former junior champions Roger Federer and Stefan Edberg and guaranteed him a wildcard entry into the 2009 Wimbledon men's draw. His success continued at the US Open, which he won on September 7, defeating American qualifier Devin Britton 6-3,6-4.[3] On his way to the title he also defeated top seed Tsung-hua Yang of Taiwan in the semifinals. After the tournament Dimitrov announced that he was ending his junior career and focusing on improving his ATP ranking. On September 8 he became junior world number one overtaking Tsung-hua Yang[4].

Professional career

Grigor began frequent participation in men's events in 2008. His first title came on clay at a futures tournament in Barcelona (19 May). His fist ATP level match was at 's-Hertogenbosch where he lost to Igor Andreev (RUS) 1-6, 3-6. After his junior US Open title he won back to back futures tournaments in Madrid on hard court and rose 300 places to career high ranking of 477. The achievement attracted enough attention to earn him a wildcard into the AMS Madrid qualifying draw where he lost 3-6 3-6 to then #64 Florent Serra (FRA). After being granted another wildcard to the Davidoff Swiss Indoors Championships in Basel, he won his first professional match at the ATP level by defeating #122 Jiří Vaněk (CZE) 75 46 76(6), in the first round of the qualifying draw.

At the start of 2009 he was granted a wildcard to the main draw of the 2009 ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament at Rotterdam, The Netherlands. In the first round he upset the then world #23 Tomas Berdych (CZE) 4-6 6-3 6-4. In the second round he faced World #1 Rafael Nadal.

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Op zaterdag 14 februari 2009 14:52 schreef Tim86 het volgende:
Krijgt iedere noob hier meteen een topic ofzo

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Op dinsdag 17 februari 2009 23:34 schreef wimderon het volgende:
Hij is er vroeg bij met choken.

Een driesetter tegen Simon is niks bijzonders, dat kan Simon tegen elke willekeurige kneus overkomen.

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Op woensdag 18 februari 2009 12:55 schreef wimderon het volgende:

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Mwah, het kan net zo goed zijn dat dit zijn top is zoals bij Donald het geval is, of dat hij zo'n typische indoorkneus is a la pakweg Petschzner. Voor deze drie potjes stond ie maar wat te baggeren in futures en challengers eind vorig jaar en begin dit jaar.

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Op vrijdag 20 februari 2009 14:10 schreef Tim86 het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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Raar mannetje..

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Op maandag 2 maart 2009 13:20 schreef wimderon het volgende:
Generatiegenoot (nou ja, nog 1,5 jaar jonger) Tomic heeft z'n eerste Challenger al te pakken

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Op woensdag 18 maart 2009 13:10 schreef wimderon het volgende:

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2e ronde verloren van Udomchoke.

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A Grigor Dimitrov Moment



The two girls smiled at each other. Then they looked backed at Court 10, at the player in the yellow shirt with the silky one-handed backhand and the very familiar service motion and the easy way with a forehand winner. Then the girls looked at each other again. They smiled again. They were having a Grigor Dimitrov moment.

The Grigor Dimitrov Moment: It sounds like a bad lounge-band name. I can see it now: A tall man with a receding hairline and a black goatee is hunched over a saxophone in a half-empty basement bar in Philly or Prague. But no, a Dimitrov Moment is what we got in Melbourne on Monday. In front of those two smitten girls, as well as a fair number of tennis cognescenti, the 19-year-old Bulgarian won his first match at a Grand Slam by routing Andrey Golubev, an otherwise perfectly respectable pro who is currently ranked No. 36 in the world. It wasn’t just that Dimitrov beat Golubev like a drum, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2; it’s that he outclassed him. He was the elegant tennis aristocrat slumming it for a few moments with the clumsy hoi polloi.

Players win their first matches at Grand Slams all the time, of course. But Dimitrov hasn’t been just another player since 2008. That year he won junior Wimbledon and the U.S. Open back to back, turned pro, and was promptly pushed into the pole position among the contenders for Next Big Tennis Thing.

And that’s as far as he got until today. The two years since Dimitrov’s junior triumphs have been hard ones. He was lost on the Challenger circuit, playing in Thailand one week and Geneva the next. He dropped out of the Top 200. The early talk of a touring entourage faded. When I spoke to him by phone from somewhere between Katmandu and Timbuktu last year, he sounded humbled. “I just have to keep going and hope it turns around,” he said.

It turned around in 2010. Dimitrov began working with former doubles standout Peter McNamara of Australia. He won six Challengers. He moved into the Top 200, then the Top 150, then up to 105, which is where he started this tournament. He’s not talking about hopes anymore; he’s talking about goals. Big goals.

“We’re aiming high," Dimitrov said today. "We want to be in the Top 40 by the end of the year." Maybe he’ll get the old entourage together again, too.

What changed? Nothing too specific or miraculous, it seems. “I’m more mature on court now,” Dimitrov said. “I have to accept it didn’t come as fast. I know I have to take it step by step.”

But the new confidence hasn’t vanquished the old frustration just yet. Dimitrov shoved an umpire at a Challenger in Helsinki last month, but was not suspended.

“It’s something that happened,” said Dimitrov, who described himself as “not an easy person” all the time. “It will never happen again.”

The talent, the temper, the early professional disappointment. Does this lineup remind you of someone else? Yes, Dimitrov appears to be taking a page or two from Roger Federer. Make that three or four or five pages. The Bulgarian says Federer is his hero, and he’s clearly spent a good deal of time watching him play.

The similarities in their games are uncanny. The relaxed start and sudden upward burst on the serve. The long extension on the backhand, and the extra, easy snap of topspin on the forehand. Dimitrov even sets up for his backhand the same way as Federer. Both of them, when they have the time, turn their bodies to the net and place their feet far apart for balance.

It’s one thing to copy the mechanics. It’s another to get the results—to catch the spirit rather than just the letter of the Federer law. Dimitrov does that too, and he did it today to devastating effect. Both Dimitrov and Federer seem to play farther from their torsos than their opponents, with a sweep to their strokes that lets them get more of their arms and bodies into their shots—they get out their own way. Golubev was handcuffed by Dimitrov’s inside-out forehand, as well as his down the line backhand. At 4-2 in the third set, Dimitrov hit three returns of serve that landed on the baseline, and which Golubev dumped into the net. After the last one, Golubev shrugged as if to say, “Forget it. Nothing I can do about that. Get me out of here.”

Dimitrov moves with something of the ease of Federer, and as I said, his way of playing has that loose, high-class Federer sheen (whether he's actually as fast is yet to be determined). This begs the question: Did Dimitrov borrow some of his talent from Federer? Or did his mimicry hold him back from developing what would have been his own genius? You can’t just move like Federer because you want to.

Would the younger man have been as good—or maybe better—if he had never seen the older man play? Would we all be better if we could make our games as close to Federer’s as possible? It’s one thing to copy a player’s general style. Bjorn Borg launched a million baseliners. It’s another to copy—or internalize; Dimitrov understandably doesn’t like the copycat label—the idiosyncrasies of one man’s genius. John McEnroe had no imitators.

None of this means the Bulgarian is any kind of genius; Frank Dancevic's game is also reminiscent of Federer's, and he's never cracked the Top 20. What matters for tennis fans is this: If you like to watch Roger Federer play, you’re going to like to watch Grigor Dimitrov. If, like me, you love Federer’s game but have gotten tired of his Sire Jacket lordliness over the years, you’ll like him even more, because it’s going to be a while before Dimitrov lords it over anyone. I spent a set at Court 10 watching Dimitrov-Golubev today, long enough to see that it wasn’t going to be a competitive match. So I traipsed to the other side of Melbourne Park, which is not around the corner, to watch some of Victor Troicki, another guy I’m interested this season. Or at least I thought I was interested in him. Compared to Dimitrov, Troicki’s game seemed limited and earthbound. So I got up and made the trek back to Court 10, just for the pleasure of seeing the kid play.

The two girls were there, and they were still smiling. So was Dimitrov. When he won the last point, he pumped his fist and flashed a wide grin. Then he looked at his coaches and smiled some more. He couldn’t stop smiling. He’d won a Grand Slam match. It was a Grigor Dimitrov moment to savor.

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Op maandag 17 januari 2011 22:12 schreef _-_ratjetoe_-_ het volgende:

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Wtf is nou een Grigor Dimitrov moment, dat wordt me niet duidelijk.

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Op zaterdag 9 april 2011 16:24 schreef Norrage het volgende:
Iig de eerste en de laatsteniet...tomic