Grigor Dimitrov: A Tale of Unfulfilled Potential (So Far)

By Christopher Weis | May 18, 2016

Mar 29, 2016; Key Biscayne, FL, USA; Grigor Dimitrov hits a forehand against Gael Monfils (not pictured) during day nine of the Miami Open at Crandon Park Tennis Center. Monfils won 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

One of the biggest disappointments in recent tennis has to be Grigor Dimitrov. After much touting by the media and high expectations, Dimitrov has only managed to carve out a good, unspectacular, and consequently disappointing, career.

Let’s look at what happened a few weeks ago at the final of a 250 tournament in Istanbul recently. Grigor Dimitrov won the first set against Diego Schwartzman , who was ranked in the 80s. Dimitrov proceeded to take the lead in the second set and appeared ready to win.

Then, he completely and utterly collapsed. He lost the second set in a tiebreak and then completely unraveled in the third set. In that, set, he received multiple warnings for racket abuse and then he lost the match by smashing his racket for a third time while trailing 5-0. In short, this was a really bad loss.

Dimitrov has achieved some success in his career, however. He has four career titles and achieved a career-high ranking of number eight in the world back in 2014 after he made the semifinals at Wimbledon. In that tournament, he defeated Andy Murray. Although, to be completely fair, Murray played a very poor match in losing to Dimitrov. But after this happened, many assumed that Dimitrov would become a steady force atop the men’s game.

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Instead, he hasn’t even achieved the consistency of Milos Raonic, another touted young player of similar age. For anybody that disputes that, Raonic is currently ranked 9^th and was in the final of Indian Wells this year.

Currently, Dimitrov is ranked 36^th. There are a total of five players who are ranked higher than he is who are younger than he is.

Of course, this is not to claim that Dimitrov is completely incapable of becoming a better player. Look at Stan Wawrinka. He didn’t win this first major title until he was 28 years old. Dimitrov could do something like that.

I’m not the only one who has noticed this with Dimitrov. Here is an article that makes similar points to what I did, including focusing on Dimitrov beating Djokovic in 2013 at the Madrid Masters.

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Perhaps one of the best ways I can summarize Dimitrov is this: a casual tennis fan would best know him as a former boyfriend of Maria Sharapova, not because of anything that he has accomplished on the court. There’s no doubt that Dimitrov has a lot of talent. It’s just that, as I noted in the title, his potential has been largely unfulfilled so far.

You don’t get to be number eight in the world without having talent. He just needs to harness that talent so that the rest of his career isn’t somewhat disappointing the way the first part has been.

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