Ever since Grigor Dimitrov broke out as a teenager by winning the junior Wimbledon and US Open back to back in 2008, he has carried a crushing and frankly unbearable burden. He burst on to the scene playing a style that bore an uncanny similarity to Roger Federer’s, and in no time, he was nicknamed ‘Baby Fed’ and pushed to the front of that imaginary queue of tennis’ next great champions.
Over the next decade and a little more however, as the two travelled the world and crossed paths at many a tournament, they represented two divergent strands. Their game mechanics matched, but not fortunes. If the service motion, fluid on-court movement, the crisp and snappy forehand and the one-handed backhand mirrored each other’s, results were chalk and cheese. Federer raked up more than 100 Tour titles and 20 Slams; Dimitrov barely touched double-digit trophies and didn’t reach a single Major final.
It is only now, well into the third decade of his life and with Federer’s shadow no longer looming large, that the Bulgarian is running his own race. Last week, en route the Miami Masters final, Dimitrov, soon to be 33, came roaring back into the top-10 (No. 9) for the first time since October 2018. And marching in tow was the one-handed backhand — a purist’s last-remaining link to the tennis of yore — which was exiled for the first time in ATP rankings history when Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas slipped out of the top-10 in February.
