Dimitrov's Dip

There’s no place like home, they say. But what happens when home—in this case, a player’s favorite tournament—isn’t quite as welcoming as it once was? What if it’s not enough to cure that player’s ills or jump-start his season, the way it has in the past? On the men’s side, we’ll have two chances to find out the answer very soon. Like Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros earlier this month, Grigor Dimitrov couldn’t use the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club, which has been so good to him over the years, to turn his disappointing 2015 around.

Dimitrov is Bulgarian, but the tournament in London has always treated him like a native son. In 2009, he was given a wild card by the director at the time, Chris Kermode, who was impressed by Dimitrov’s run to the Wimbledon junior title the previous year. The 18-year-old made good on that vote of confidence by winning a round and showing off his Federer-esque brand of tennis to the assembled British press. In 2014, Dimitrov won the title at Queen’s, went on to crack the Top 10, and, at Wimbledon, reached the first of what seemed sure to be many Grand Slam semifinals.

For most players, the Aegon is just a tune-up for the Big W down the road, but Dimitrov had dreamed of holding the famously immense silver trophy at Queen’s.

“Last year was an unbelievable moment for me,” he said at the draw ceremony this week. “One of the first things I did was ring my dad, and I remember coming out here with him when I got the first wild card, and I said, ‘I like that trophy a lot.’ Next thing you know, I had it in my hands.”

And while his title defense in 2015 got off to a rocky start—he dropped the first set to Sam Querrey in his opener before coming back to win in three—Dimitrov still sounded pleased to be back at Queen’s.

“It’s one of the tournaments for me that I feel that every time I step on that court, I feel like I own the court,” Dimitrov said. “It’s a really nice feeling to have. I mean, I wish that on every tournament I was playing, but I go way back here, so everything is just so familiar.”

This time, though, familiarity wasn’t enough. The 11th-ranked Dimitrov would lose his next match, to 32-year-old, 48th-ranked Gilles Muller. Despite the age and ranking disparity, the loss wasn’t a shock. Early exits have been the norm, rather than the exception, for Dimitrov recently. At 24, just when he should be entering his prime, he has slipped back out of the Top 10. The loss to Muller left him with a 19-12 record for the season, and this was the second title he had failed to defend. The last time it happened, in Acapulco in February, Dimitrov lost 6-0 in the third set to Ryan Harrison. It was an early sign that we might not see the same rising young star that we had seen in 2014.

If Thursday’s 6-4, 7-6 (5) loss to Muller wasn’t as awful as his exit in Acapulco, it still didn’t offer much hope for improvement in the near future. No surface demands better play on big points than grass, and Dimitrov couldn’t come up with it. Serving at 4-5 in the first, down set point, he misfired on a routine forehand. And in the second-set tiebreaker it was Muller, who is hardly a match for Dimitrov from the back court, who took the initiative with a lightning-strike forehand down the line for a key winner. For all of Dimitrov’s varied talents, it was Muller’s lumbering lefty force that won the day. On the final point, Dimitrov slipped on the turf and had to watch helplessly as the ball slipped past him. It was that kind of afternoon, and it has been that kind of year.

“I felt I have been unlucky in the past weeks with a lot that has been going on,” Dimitrov said, “and it’s something that, actually, I accept and I need to fight through.”

“Same thing happened with me today,” he continued. “I felt I was striking the ball well. I felt everything was going according to my plan. But just one or two points turned everything away from me, and that made a difference.”

Dimitrov didn’t elaborate on what, exactly, has been “going on” with him, and how he has been unlucky. But he did say in March, after his loss in Acapulco, that he was struggling to implement changes to his game.

“A little bit difference since I have been working on a lot of things,” he said. “I think it just takes a bit of time to really find the rhythm. My game still needs to improve a little bit more, needs a bit of a polish up. Usually it’s very tough when you break a habit to come out there and play under the circumstances...It’s never easy to change it right away.”

It’s safe to say that Dimitrov is still trying to find his rhythm. His one-handed backhand, as much of a pleasure as it can be to watch, has always been a relative liability—at the very least, it makes it easy for his opponents to decide where to go against him. While there haven’t been any obvious changes to his strokes or strategies, there has been a noticeable dip in Dimitrov’s outward intensity this season. Last year, as his ranking ascended, he looked fired up, a man who was destined for better things. This year, as that ascent has stalled, he has looked emotionally flat during matches, and almost resigned in defeat.

At Queen’s, Dimitrov hinted that, after his breakthrough 2014, he has tried to take a more professional, “been there, done that” approach in 2015.

“You need to start repeating it,” he said of his title defenses, “...at some point you have worked so hard in your life and your tennis that you don’t want to be too much up and down. You want to do what you have done and eventually get better.”

Judging from his results so far this season, Dimitrov might want to start acting like he hasn’t been there and done that quite yet. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a great sign when he closed out his 2014 by declining the chance to be an alternate at the World Tour Finals in November, even when he was already in London. The step from Top 10 to Top 5 is the hardest of all, and only an insatiable hunger is going to get you there.

It’s also possible that, in the future, Dimitrov might benefit from hearing a new voice. His coach, Roger Rasheed, has been instrumental in motivating him and taking him to the Top 10, but few coaching relationships last forever. As I’ve mentioned before, if Dimitrov wants a “polish up,” as he says, Paul Annacone, who mastered that art with Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, is nearby in Los Angeles.

But fist-pumps and tactical tweaks will only take him so far. Is Dimitrov and his throwback style destined to be one of the casualties of the Big 4 era? You can never say never. As recently as 2013, many of us thought the same thing about Stan Wawrinka; if there’s one thing the 30-year-old Wawrinka has shown everyone on the ATP tour, it’s that patience is a virtue. But Dimitrov will never have Wawrinka’s blistering, hit-my-way-out-of-anything pace, especially with his one-hander. And while his game has plenty of flash, it doesn’t lend itself to the physical grind that separates the Slam champs from everyone else these days. Even Muller had the power advantage over him in Queen's.

Dimitrov has tried to remain positive in his press conferences.

“I don’t think I’m playing bad tennis at the moment,” he said on his way out of Queen’s. “I just am doing a lot of good things on the court that really don’t discourage me to play.”

He says that while he’s disappointed with his early loss there, he’s happy to have the extra practice time before Wimbledon. He’ll need it: Dimitrov isn’t defending a title, but he’s defending something just as big, a semifinal run at a Grand Slam and the ranking points that come with it. The thought seemed to give him pause on Thursday.

"I'm just going to stay positive," he said. "Wimbledon is coming up. I'm going to have good time to get ready. Yeah, everything is going to be—I think everything is going to be fine for me."

Dimitrov's best chance may be to pretend that last year never happened.