Who is Grigor Dimitrov’s coach in 2022?

Last Updated on August 23, 2022

Known as “Baby Federer” of professional tennis, nickname given for his stylish play and on-court talent, one of the tennis players who had great potential to become No.1 is Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.

Grigor was born on 16^th of May 1991 in Haskovo, Bulgaria. He was born and raised in a sports family, his father Dimitar is a tennis coach and his mother Maria, a sports teacher and former volleyball player. At age of three he first held a tennis racket, given to him by his mother and when he was five, he began to play daily. As a child, Dimitrov was coached by his father at Tennis Club Haskovo, and at age of 14 he claimed his first major junior cup, the U14 European title. In 2006 he won the Orange Bowl U16 boys singles. After he proved his talent in the tournaments for juniors it was clear that would have to develop in other conditions. 

Who is Grigor Dimitrov’s current coach?

Grigor Dimitrov during his career worked with a variety of coaches. Since January 2021 he is coached by Dante Bottini.

Dante Bottini was born 8^th October in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He started playing tennis at age four and through 2003. He played at the University of West Florida and graduated with a degree in sports management. As a tennis player he played the Futures and Challenger circuit, without any significant success, reaching rankings No.827 in singles. Dante started coaching career in 2007 at IMG academy and worked with players of all ages.

In 2010 he began working with Japanese Kei Nishikori, been together for nine years, a period during which Kei won 12 titles, played US Open final in 2014 and reached world No.4 in 2015. At the 2016 Olympics, Nishikori won bronze medal, earning Japan’s first singles Olympic medal since 1920.   

“After 9 years of working together I have decided it is time for a new voice, I’m forever grateful for Dante’s contributions to my career and we will obviously remain very close friends.” announced Nishikori parting with his coach on social media.

From the start of 2021 he started coaching Grigor Dimitrov, trying to navigate him back into the top-10. Grigor began the year by reaching quarterfinals at Australia Open and then managed to reach the semifinals in Indian Wells for the first time in his career. During 2022, his best results so far are semifinals at Melbourne Summer Set tournament and Monte-Carlo Masters.

“Dimitrov is getting his tennis back. If there’s one thing I like about him, it’s the energy he puts on the track when he’s out there. I like that and, in addition, I appreciate that he listens to my advice, which is important.” said Dante about their collaboration.

“The moment I found out Dante was sort of alone, I reached out to him, just wanted to hear his thoughts a little bit on my game and, you know, on a potential work plan and so on. I think we met, spent a very quality time together, and it’s been a long time since I have had somebody that felt very similar to my way of thinking and working ethic. We hit it off.” Dimitrov said.

Grigor Dimitrov’s Past Coaches

William Pato Alvarez

As 16 years old boy in 2007, Grigor joined the academy “Sanchez-Casal” where he was trained under mentorship of William Pato Alvarez.

Pato Alvarez was born on 15^th December 1934 in Medellin, Colombia and died this year at age of 87. During his career he was an eight-time Colombian national champion and his best result on Majors is third round at French Open. He relocated to Spain in 1970s where is recognized as creator of the current Spanish tennis training system and became a world acclaimed tennis coach. In the 1980s was the technical manager of the Royal Spanish Tennis federation and was in charge of choosing the best Spanish tennis players whom he accompanied in the main tournaments on the circuit. He trained outstanding Spanish rackets such as Emilio Sanchez Vicario and prominent tennis players on the international scene such as Andy Murray and Juan Monaco.

Under Pato’s mentorship, in 2007, Dimitrov was the finalist at the Orange Bowl U18 boys’ singles losing to Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania and with Vasek Pospisil, he reached US open doubles final. During 2008 he won Junior Wimbledon without dropping a set, and Junior US Open. After that tournament on 8 September 2008, he became junior world No.1 and announced that he was ending his junior career and focusing on improving his ATP ranking. Later that year came his first title in men’s events at a futures tournament on clay in Barcelona and after that futures tournament in Madrid on hard court.

“Grigor is the best 17-year-old tennis player that I have trained so far.” said Alvarez on his trainee back then.

They separated their ways early in 2009. 

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Peter Lundgren

Since March 2009 Dimitrov trained in Paris where he joined Patrick Mouratoglou’s Tennis Academy and spent next four seasons there. That year he formally began a coaching relationship with Peter Lundgren.

Peter Lundgren was born on 29^th January 1965 in Gudmundra, Sweden. He was one of the second-generation Swedish players along with Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Joakim Nystrom that followed after the success of Bjorn Borg. During his playing career won 3 titles in singles (Cologne, San Francisco, and Rye Brook) and 3 titles in doubles (Tel Aviv, Newport and Sydney Indoor). Lundgren’s best ranking was 25^th in the world, he retired at 30 years of age and then went into coaching.

“I was little up and down as player. Sometimes I could lose motivation and then suddenly get thrashed against lower ranked players.”

He made a name for himself as a coach when took Marcelo Rios into top 10. Worked for the Swiss Tennis Federation coaching juniors, among them Roger Federer for three years. In 2005 guided Marat Safin to the Australian Open title. His trainees were British Davies Cup team, Marcos Baghdatis, Stanislas Wawrinka, Daniela Hantuchova.

Grigor Dimitrov, during their collaboration made his Grand Slam debut at the Wimbledon and won his first doubles Challenger title alongside with Teymuraz Gabashvili, at the ATP Challenger Trophy held in Trnava, Slovakia.

“He is better player than Federer was at his age.” said Lundgren about Grigor Dimitrov

From the beginning of 2010 Dimitrov had a number of disappointing losses in Challenger events and separated ways with Peter Lundgren.

Peter McNamara

Starting from June 2010 Grigor started collaboration with Australian coach Peter McNamara.

Peter McNamara was born on 5^th July 1955 in Melbourne, Australia and died in 2019 at age of 64 from prostate cancer. As a player he won five singles and nineteen doubles titles out of which three Grand Slams. His highest singles ATP-ranking is No.7 and No.3 in doubles. In partnership with Paul McNamee, duo known as the “Super Macs,” claimed 1980 and 1982 Wimbledon as well as the Australian Open in 1979. There was also an impressive singles career and wins over Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl. He represented Australia in 21 Davis Cup singles and doubles rubbers over a six-year period, culminating in the 1986 title run. After retiring at age of 32 he started coaching career at Tennis Australia. He went on to coach juniors and professionals including Carling Bassett, Mark Philippoussis, Mathew Ebden and Wang Qiang 

When coaching Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgarian managed to improve his form and captured three consecutive titles on Challenger Tour. First at the IPP Trophy held in Geneva, Switzerland defeating Pablo Andujar. Than at the final of Bangkok Open he beat former top 20 player Dmitry Tursunov and won Bangkok Open 2 defeating Alexander Kudryavtsev.

During 2011 he won Challenger DCNS de Cherbourg by defeating defending champion Nicolas Mahut in the final. He played many tournaments, entered top 100 and ended the year ranked No.76

They ended their coaching relationship at the end of the 2011 season.

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Patrick Mouratoglou

In 2012, Dimitrov was coached by Patrick Mouratoglou.  

Patrick Jean Andre Mouratoglou (52), a French tennis coach with Greek descent, was born 8^th June 1970 in Neuilly-sue-Seine, France. He founded the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in 1996 near Paris and coached many top tour players, among them Marcos Baghdatis, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Jeremy Chardy and Serena Williams. Currently he is coach of Stefanos Tsitsipas together with his father Apostolos Tsitsipas, Coco Gauff, and Simona Halep.

He has achieved the greatest success with Serena Williams, guided her to her fifth, sixth and seventh Wimbledon titles, the Olympic gold medal, her fourth, fifth and sixth US Open titles, her second and third French Open titles, three consecutive year-end championships titles, her sixth and seventh Australian Open title.

Coached by Mouratoglou, Grigor Dimitrov that year made his first win over a top-ten player, by beating Tomas Berdych at the Sony Ericsson Open. He participated at many tournaments, reached his first ATP semifinal at the Aegon Championships, and ended 2012 ranked World No.48 in singles.   

In November 2012 Dimitrov left the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy and has joined the Good to Great Tennis Academy in Sweden.

Roger Rasheed

On 7 October 2013, Grigor announced that he has hired Roger Rasheed.

Roger Rasheed, Australian of Lebanese descent, was born 10^th March 1969 in Adelaide, Australia. He is former Australian Rules football player, tennis player, coach, and commentator. As a tennis player was the youngest ever to qualify for an Australian Open in 1985 at 16 years of age. He won four titles in the ATP Challenger Series and reached 192 in ATP singles rankings.

As tennis coach is notable as Lleyton Hewitt’s coach, who under Rasheed’s mentorship became the first Australian in seventeen years to reach the Australian Open final and win the 2006 Queen’s Club Championships. He also coached Gael Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

As for Grigor Dimitrov, just one month after hiring Roger Rasheed, he won his first ATP title in Stockholm after beating David Ferrer in the final. That year Grigor made his biggest win of his career at that moment, defeating world No.1 Novak Djokovic at the Madrid Open and reached a career-best No.22 in the world.

During 2014 Dimitrov won Acapulco Open by defeating Kevin Anderson in the final, reached his first ATP title on clay at Bucharest Open beating Lukas Rosol and his first ATP title on grass at Aegon Championships where he defeated Feliciano Lopez in the final.

At Wimbledon, he made his best result on Grand Slams, playing in semifinal, where he was beaten in four sets by Novak Djokovic who went on to win the tournament. That performance led him to No.9 at ATP rankings and was chosen for Bulgarian Sportsperson of the Year.

“This kid came to me pretty strongly when I stopped with Tsonga. When you say you want to be the best player in the world at some point in your career, it means you’re really prepared to be accountable, which opens a lot of skeletons, a lot of doors and have to be honest with yourself. To his credit, he’s wanted to do that.” said Rasheed about his beginnings with Grigor.

They parted ways after Wimbledon in 2015.

Starting from September 2015, he trained under mentorship of Franco Davin.

Franco Davin (52) was born 11^th January 1970 in buenos Aires, Argentina. He had an excellent junior career, winning French Open Doubles and reaching US Open Singles final. He holds record for being the youngest player to win an ATP-tour level main draw match, at age of 15 years and 1 month. During his playing career won 3 ATP titles, 4 Challenger tournaments and reached a career-high singles ranking of World No.30 in 1990.

He retired from playing tennis in 1997 and started his coaching career. Under his tutelage Juan Martin del Potro won the 2009 US Open and also coached Gaston Gaudio when he won the 2004 French Open. His collaboration with Grigor Dimitrov was short-lived as Dimitrov dropped out of the top 20 during 2015 and his downfall continued during 2016.

Daniel Vallverdu

Since June 2016 Dimitrov has been coached by Daniel Vallverdu.

Daniel Vallverdu was born 17^th March 1986 in Valencia, Venezuela. He attended the Sanchez-Casal Barcelona Tennis Academy when he was 15 where he met Andy Murray and two quickly became best friends. He did not have significant career as a player, but his coaching pedigree is amazing.

In 2010 became Murray’s coach and worked actively alongside Ivan Lendl who joined the team in 2012. Memorable highlights of his coaching work with Murray are gold medal at London Olympics 2012, won US Open 2012 and Wimbledon 2013. He also trained Tomas Berdych, Karolina Pliskova and currently is coaching Stan Wawrinka.

At the start of their collaboration, Dimitrov showed signs that it could be very successful. He reached semifinals in Cincinnati and Stockholm and final at Chengdu Open.

Next 2017, he had a flying start of the season, winning Brisbane International by defeating world No.5, Kei Nishikori in the finals. Then he moved to play Australian Open where was eliminated in the semifinals by Rafael Nadal in a match that was later cited among the top 3 of best Grand Slam matches in 2017. Also won Sofia Open, Cincinnati and ended his best year in the pro career by winning ATP Finals as debutant.

Grigor finished 2017 at a career-high world No.3 only behind Nadal and Federer, won the Balkan Athlete of the Year award and won Bulgarian Sportsperson of the Year award for second time.

Grigor, in 2018 was far from his results accomplished previous year. Before the 2018 Paris Masters, Vallverdu brought fresh coaching blood to the team, a well-known face in tennis world, Andre Agassi.

“Agassi cannot be anything but positive. I’ve talked with Grigor for a while about adding something to the team who can help him play more consistent game and be at the top more regularly. The problem for him, with his game and his personality, is to be solid all the time. Obviously, I’ve worked on this a lot myself, but my job as leader of the team is to find better solutions.” said Vallverdu

Andre Agassi was born 29^th April 1970 in Las Vegas, USA. When he was 13, he was sent to Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Florida and after 30 minutes of watching Agassi play, impressed by his talent, Bollettieri decided to coach him for free. He is one of the best tennis players of all time, winning 60 career titles out of which eight Grand Slams, three Davis Cups and one Olympic gold medal. He had a great rivalry, called the greatest of the generation, with Pete Sampras. He retired in 2006 and before coaching Dimitrov he was part of Novak Djokovic’s team.

Radek Stepanek

In May 2019 Dimitrov and Vallverdu parted ways following a string of unsuccessful tournament participations and Bulgarian added Radek Stepanek to his team, but that lasted only few months.

Radek Stepanek (430 was born 27^th November 1978 in Karvina, Czech Republic. During his playing career won 5 singles titles and 18 doubles titles out of which two Grand Slams (Australian and US Open) Also he is two times Davis Cup champion. His career-high singles ranking was world No.8 and best doubles ranking was No.4. After his retirement in 2017, started coaching career and during 2018 was part of Novak Djokovic’s team.

“We wanted to see with Stepanek whether things would work. Agassi is still with me. In the important moments, you can count on him. Our relationship goes beyond tennis.” Dimitrov said in an interview with Bulgarian television. 

Christian Groh

During 2020, Grigor Dimitrov worked with German coach Christian Groh.

Christian Groh was born in Crailsheim, Germany. He started coaching career in 2010 and best results had with Tommy Hass and Taylor Fritz. Under his mentorship Haas won Halle, Munich and Vienna and reached No.11 in the world within less than 24 months, while Fritz managed to win the Us Open Juniors reached French Open final and became World No.1 in the Junior ITF rankings.

Best Dimitrov’s result under Agassi and Groh, in 2019 was defeating Roger Federer and reaching semifinals at US Open, and in 2020 reaching the fourth round of the French Open.

As the 2020 season did not go very well and Dimitrov hasn’t added any ATP title to his tally of eight since 2017, he part ways with both Agassi and Groh.

From 2021, Grigor Dimitrov started his journey with Dante Bottini.

Grigor Dimitrov’s achievements with different coaches

We have collected in the table the data about the trophies won by Grigor Dimitrov under the guidance of various coaches.