Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov sits in his chair after he went down with an injury which forced him to retire from a fourth-round men’s singles match against Italy’s Jannik Sinner at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London on July 7, 2025
| Photo Credit: AP
Monday (July 8, 2025) on Centre Court could have been special for Grigor Dimitrov. Watched on by the legendary Roger Federer – whose shot mechanics he closely mimics, including the pleasing, almost therapeutic, sound of the racquet striking the ball – he was up two sets (6-3,7-5) against World No. 1 Jannik Sinner.
At the end of the second set, the roof was closed and lights switched on to lend the Bulgarian’s brilliance an additional burst of radiance.
That was when disaster struck, and Dimitrov, after serving an ace to level at 2-2 in the third set, went down, clenching his right pectoral muscle. A short medical time-out ensued but he withdrew on return to send the capacity crowd into mourning and the Italian into the quarterfinals.
“I don’t take this as a win,” Sinner said during the on-court interview, which he returned to complete after respectfully walking a sobbing Dimitrov off the court.
Sinner himself was troubled by a right-elbow injury following a fall and had an MRI on Tuesday (July 8, 2025). That, however, should take nothing away from Dimitrov, for whom the defeat will sting. It was his fifth straight retirement at Majors during what has otherwise been a glorious second wind.
Once spoken of as a potential Slam champion, he struggled to break through the stranglehold established by Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. But in April 2024, he returned to the top-10 and maintained that place until January 2025.
Even as the winds of change are sweeping through men’s tennis, he is ranked 21 and is the second-oldest man in the singles top-25 after Djokovic. A throwback to a different era, he asks questions of new-age champions that they rarely encounter.
Dimitrov, in fact, has beaten Carlos Alcaraz, the two-time defending Wimbledon champion, in two of their previous three meetings, with the Spaniard even quipping in Miami last year that he was made to “feel like 13”. It would have been Sinner’s turn to experience that, but for a lucky escape.
Published – July 08, 2025 09:16 pm IST
