Two faces that are a poem. One of Grigor Dimitrov, who barely contains the tears because the misfortune, a traveling companion of an extraordinary tennis player, chases him everywhere and also reaches him in London, witnessing a sad episode; The other is that of Jannik Sinner, a number one that until the moment in which the Pectoral muscle of the Bulgarian has broken in the serve maneuver, suffered the unspeakable because the elbow had been hurt in a bad fall and had a foot and a half outside the tournament. So the Italian snacks: it has been saved by the very hairs. And everyone has the bad body for the outcome, after all, unfair: this is sport. 6-3, 7-5 and 2-2.
So far, absolute wind in favor for Dimitrov, helped, by the way, for the misfortune that his adversary had previously experienced, who when trying to return the ball has suffered a slip and hurts the elbow since the first game of the game. It will be replaced, it seems. Or not. They serve, massage him, eat three pills and addresses his coach, Darren Cahill, who says: ‘Three, three, I have already taken three’. But not for those. He has already yielded two partials and in the third, he also does not finish having them all with him, until the misfortune changes his shore and attacks Dimitrov with everything: when he went to serve, the Bulgarian breaks. There is no going back. Ice cream sensation at the central.
“He has had bad luck in these years. He is a good friend of mine, we understand each other well off track, and see him in this situation …”, laments the winner, who will face the American Ben Shelton (3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (1) and 7-5 to Lorenzo Sonego) in the quarterfinals. I hope you recover quickly, your luck is yours. This is not a victory, at all. It is a very unfortunate moment. In the last greats he has suffered with the injuries and in his reaction you see what this sport cares; It works very hard, it is a misfortune, ”adds the leader of the circuit, called to settle the tournament between him, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. The pulse has been close to reducing two.
However, Dimitrov fails to get rid of that bad form that surrounds his career, that stigma of Damn tennis player: First comparisons with Roger Federer that was harmed so much, and subsequently the progressive scourge of the injuries; One after another, five in the last five Grand Slams, with the equivalents withdrawn. His Champagne tennis And his style, a fabulous combination of the modern registration with the classic mold, leads to stay in a mere aesthetic footprint. Teacher in 2017, his record does not record prize prize that that and the masters of Cincinnati conquered that year. Too little for a player of his possibilities.
“It is not the best way to finish,” Sinner slides in the conference room, closed night already in London at that moment. “The elbow has passed at the beginning of the game, I have had bad luck in the fall; it has not been hard, but I felt a lot especially in the service and the time of hitting with the right. We will see tomorrow what it is,” continued that of San Cándido, which on Tuesday will undergo a resonance to determine whether the damage is important or not. “Shelton? It will be a difficult game, knows how to play on all surfaces. But first I have to solve this problem,” he closes in a brief intervention, trusting that his articulation responds as soon as possible.
The transition from Tuesday to Wednesday will be fundamental in the future of the Italian in the tournament, while Dimitrov, 34, cries in the infirmary. A tennis player had never linked five withdrawals in the majors And no one has been more punished by the physicist than him, with a total of ten. Bad, very bad fortune of his. Equipped with exceptional talent and with one of the most refined techniques of the circuit, London will leave in the same way that Melbourne, Paris and New York before abandoned. Meanwhile, the evolution of the tournament now hangs from a thread, depending on what the diagnosis establishes and how Sinner’s elbow reacts. The latter dark night, no doubt.
