BNP Paribas Open // Surprises? Bad Days are not allowed in Tennis.

It was obviously the surprise of the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, a player who has not been showing good moments for a long time, but who remains firmly in the top 30 of the ranking. However, that the No. 28 overcomes the No. 2 in the world is something you don't see every day, I refuse to think that it is a product of Grigor's luck or the bad "lapse" of Daniil, who I have called (android) in some occasions, because of that kind of hidden level that the Muscovite makes emerge in difficult moments of this or that match. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that Medvedev simply got tired and therefore began to miss balls that he would hit with his eyes closed.

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Nor should one detract from Dimitrov, given that he displayed some dream shots, keeping his backhand well under control to handle his opponent's shots. During some complicated ball situations, the Bulgarian exhibited a subtlety in his racquet, worthy of an elite tennis player; a pity that this is not the constant in the tournaments in which he participates. However, the question that echoed in my brain while watching the match was: Why so many errors and so many missed serve opportunities by Daniil? Was he aware that by winning the 1000 points that this tournament awards, he would dethrone Novak Djokovic from the top of the ranking?

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Well, today something has happened that may answer part of these questions, because the Bulgarian has put on his superman cape and has overcome in a close match, one of my favorite players of the ATP circuit, as is the Polish Hubert Hurkacz. The Haskovo born player has come back from an adverse score, to equalize a set on each side and force the third set, in which he has added the emotion of defining it in the tiebreaker, going to a tie break that he has managed to define in a big way. Grigor I have seen him execute today three luxury strokes between yesterday and today; the inverted forehand of Roger, the parallel backhand of Andy and the elastic defense of Novak; this represents a compendium of techniques that very few players manage to gather.
Dimitrov has shown that yesterday was not luck, but the result of his work.

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Now we will have an exciting and unprecedented semifinal between two very inspired players. With the chance of redemption for Cameron Norrie, recent finalist in San Diego and Grigor Dimitrov, it will be a challenge to keep up his good pace in search of another Masters final.

See you next time!

The opinion in this publication is of a personal nature on the part of the author.
The text has been translated with Deepl in its free version.