On paper Grigor Dimitrov was expected to win his opening match at the Western and Southern Open but those numbers don’t tell the full story.
At one stage it was touch and go if the former Grand Slam semi-finalist would be able to participate in the tournament due to his recovery from the Coronavirus, which he contracted in July during the same time as the Adria Tour. Dimitrov had previously spoken about the impact the virus has taken on him and his fitness levels. He hopes his story will be one that others players listen to, who may be underestimating the threat of the pandemic.
“The first week was just tragic, coming out of it,” Dimitrov reflected on his illness.
“I started by just walking. I couldn’t really do any exercise, I could not lift weights, I couldn’t play tennis. So all I had to do was walk. I started actually crawling in the house, then walking outside, then slowly started to run a little bit each day.”
Returning to competitive tennis in New York on Sunday, the Bulgarian returned to winning ways with a 6-3, 6-4, triumph over French talent Ugo Humbert who is ranked 23 places lower than him in the ATP rankings. Overall, he won 69% of his serve points and broke Humbert three times. Although for Dimitrov winning wasn’t the most important thing for him as he looks at the bigger picture.
“I said to myself, ‘I’ll give it a try’. Now I’m here playing a match today,” he explained.
“Honestly, I’m just purely thankful that I’m even able to just be here, to participate. Forget about the match – I’m not even talking about tennis right now.”
The world No.19 hopes that his experience with COVID-19 will serve as a wake-up call in the sport. He is not the only figure in the world of tennis to have caught the virus. Novak Djokovic, Viktor Troicki, Frances Tiafoe and Kei Nishikori are some of the others to have tested positive. Although Dimitrov appears to have been the worst affected player by the pandemic based on his experiences. There have been more than 23 million documented cases of the virus worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
“I just kind of wanted to show a message that it doesn’t matter, in a sense, ‘who you are,’ how fit you are and how healthy you eat and so on,” Dimitrov concludes.
“This thing doesn’t ask anybody (those things). We’re all equal.“
Dimitrov will play Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics in the next round in New York.
