Last Updated on November 5, 2021
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, 29, has reached the semifinals in all Grand Slam tournaments except Roland Garros, where he never made it past the fourth round. Champion at the 2017 ATP Finals, Grigor has won 8 major circuit titles including a Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, the winner over Nick Kyrgios.
Interviewed by the Sunrise channel, the former top 3 commented on the difficult situation experienced by the players in these days in Australia:
“I think none of us were prepared for something like this, it’s been complicated weeks for everyone.
Regarding my case, I am among the lucky ones as I have the possibility to go out five hours a day to train. We knew that going to Australia would involve risk. Everyone in the world today is spending a lot of time inside their homes and this is obviously not the way we usually prepare for an event like this.
We players want to spend more time on the court, that’s a given, we all need more time to prepare as best we can.”
Dimitrov
The tennis player from Haskovo continued.
“I try to take it easy, the days pass slowly.
I don’t know if all this will affect my performance in the following tournaments, I hope it won’t happen. It would definitely be better not to be in this situation, but given the way things are we have to be very patient, a lot of people are making a big effort to be here.
Slowly we are managing everything in a better way, we know that in just one week is really difficult to prepare for a Slam, but we will all have the opportunity to play a previous event to test ourselves and give our best”.
Dimitrov
The Bulgarian finally talked about his coach Dante Bottini, forced to absolute isolation:
The Australians are the ones who know best the measures and provisions implemented in the country, they all had to change program in the last year, being forced here or unable to return.
I can’t say I’m happy about this situation, but you always have to have a certain consideration and perspective on things. My coach, for example, is one of the people who arrived in Australia on one of the flights isolated because of the virus, it’s something we can’t change and we can’t do anything about it.
Dimitrov
