-Chicago, Illinois
Grigor Dimitrov has had quite a bit of success indoors during his tennis career. He showed it in the opening match of the Laver Cup in Chicago. Dimitrov playing for Team Europe was dominant throughout the opening set and held serve at Love six times on route to a 6-1, 6-4 win over Frances Tiafioe of Team World.
Dimitrov, winner of three titles indoors including the year end ATP Finals in London in 2017, was firing on all cylinders during the 66 minute affair. Only during two of his own service games did he face an adversity and he broke Tiafoe on all four chances he had.
Quite the contrast from the last time they played just a few weeks ago in the third round in Toronto which Dimitrov also won in three sets but needed two tiebreak wins to do so.
The 27-year old from Bulgaria finished with 27 winners and just 12 errors. Tiafoe had just seven winners and 13 mistakes.
“I enjoy playing indoors a lot, every time I get to play I feel everything moves a bit faster a bit smoother so I was just trying to embrace that,’ said Dimitrov. “I was a bit nervous coming into the match but after each game I started to being a little bit more comfortable”
There weren’t too many highlights from the opening match and the celebrations which we saw from the players a year ago in Prague were kept to a minimum. The only time we saw much from the extra team members was after a long rally between the two players won by Tiafoe. Team World went into a frenzy with Nick Kyrgios diving on to the floor and Jack Sock could be seen doing the “spoon to mouth” gesture indicating they can’t stop Tiafoe.
Well “they”, meaning Team Europe did stop him and Dimitrov registered the first point of the 2018 Laver Cup.
@Sportshorn
