The only Bulgarian in the tennis elite, Grigor Dimitrov, faces the record holder for titles from the “Grand Slam” Novak Djokovic in the final of the “Masters” in Paris.
First set
Grisho is enjoying one of the strongest seasons of his career and one of the most remarkable weeks of his career, knocking out Lorenzo Musetti, Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Bublik, Hubert Hurkach and Stefanos Tsitsipas in succession with fantastic performances.
He had two wins over top-10 opponents Medvedev and Tsitsipas, as well as a total of four wins over top-30 opponents, which had not happened in a single tournament in his career, excluding the ATP Finals.
In total for the year, Grisho has seven wins over opponents from the top 10, and again in 2017 alone he accumulated eight, but the vast majority of them in the ATP Finals. In 2023, he is in the top 5 by this indicator, with only Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Medvedev and Yannick Siner having more. In his career, he can already boast of 38 victories over opponents of such caliber.
For the year, he registered six semi-final appearances and two finals in Geneva and now in Paris. As is known, in the Swiss city he lost in the battle for the Nicolas Jarry trophy.
In the French capital, the Bulgarian reached his second “Masters” final in his career after the title in Cincinnati in 2017. In total, at the ATP level, this is the 17th final for him, and his previous ratio is 8 titles and 8 defeats.
Our top tennis player has guaranteed himself an ascent to the 14th position in the world ranking, and if he wins the trophy in Paris, he will be 11th. Against Djokovic, he has a win since Madrid 2013 and has lost the other 11 matches between them. It should be noted that four of their last six battles have gone to three sets (one of them being at the Australian Open this year).
With 41 accumulated victories so far in the season, Grigor scored a personal achievement, because for the third time in his career he passed the 40 mark – in 2014 he had 50, and in 2017 he had 49. Separately in the “Masters” tournaments he already has 128 victories , which ties him with Fernando Verdasco for seventh place among active tennis players.
In typical style, Djokovic reached the final in Paris, chasing the seventh title of his illustrious career. The final is the ninth for him, and he is the leader in terms of games won in the history of the tournament – 49.
Nole defeated Andrey Rublev in a 3-hour duel in the semi-finals, and his previous encounters in the competition against Holger Rune and Talon Greekspor were also of epic proportions.
Grisho will face a representative of the “Big Three” in tennis for the 37th time and has one victory over each of them, but certainly his play in most of his matches over the years deserves more compliments than the results suggest.
