And now Dimitrov. Griga the Bulgarian, who at 32 years old is playing the best tennis of his career, will be Jannik Sinner's opponent tomorrow evening in the final of the Masters 1000 in Miami. In the quarterfinals Dimitrov had “joked” Carlos Alcaraz, forcing him to confess that on the court he had felt “like a 13 year old”, in the semifinal he took 2 hours and 37 minutes and three sets – 6-4 6-7 6-4 – to defeat world number 5 Sascha Zverev in a great match, a result that earned him his first return to the top ten since November 2018, after 266 weeks, the third longest period in the history of the ranking.
Zverev had beaten him on the last seven occasions, but the 2024 version of Dimitrov seems to want to take away a lot of satisfaction and avenge years in which, mainly through his own fault, he collected much less than his talent deserved.
This time too it was the Dimitrov Show, a battle between Zverev's two-handed backhand and Griga's 'one-handed' one, between the German's percussion and Dimitrov's champagne tennis who never lost serve and was able to hold on even after the tie -break lost, and continued until the end to attack, vary, create tennis, playing better in the decisive closes of the match. The point that gave him the decisive break at 4-3 in the third set was spectacular, a contortionist volley played by sliding to the ground after Zverev's passer had reared up on the tape.
As a young man they called him baby Federer, and when in 2017 he reached number 3 in the world, also winning the ATP Finals, the nickname finally didn't seem so cruel, then the passion for everything related to tennis – his historic engagements with Maria Sharapova and singer Nicole Sherzinger – moved him off the radar. What brought him back to where he deserves to be were an examination of conscience (“I decided to focus more on tennis”), an athletic and still intact physique, and Jamie Delgado, the English coach who convinced him to make more use of his talents as a striker who is both very stylish and acrobatic – one of the few who still today can afford serves & volleys and continuous pressing at the net.
Sinner, who after dismantling Medvedev earned the compliments of Serena Williams (“I wish I had had his right”), has won two out of three precedents with the Bulgarian playboy. After the defeat in 2020 on the clay of Rome, she prevailed in 2023 on the hard courts of Miami in two fairly clear sets, and then indoors in Beijing. However, tomorrow's final will be a match between two players who have definitely changed compared to twelve months ago.
#Dimitrov #beats #Zverev #challenge #Sinner #final #Miami
