Despite only ever defeating Rafael Nadal once in his career, Grigor Dimitrov is looking at the wider picture following his latest meeting with the world No.1.
On Saturday the ATP World tour Finals champion could only win five games during his 6-4, 6-1, loss to the Spaniard. Losing seven consecutive games at one point of the match. Despite the one-sided scoreline, Dimitrov’s confidence has not been dented.
“I’m just going to take only the positives out of the match. It’s great to be able to play three, four matches back-to-back.” Said Dimitrov.
“I think physically also I’m on a good level, meaning in terms of moving well and all that.” He added.
The Bulgarian No.1 trails 11-1 to Nadal in their head-to-head. His only triumph occurred on hard courts at the 2016 China Open. On the clay, he has only managed to win one set in four matches played. An unsurprising statistic given Nadal’s flawless record on the clay, which features a record ten French Open titles. Heading into the Monte Carlo final, the Spaniard has won a career best 34 straight sets on the clay.
“I value sometimes more the lessons. I hate losing,” Dimitrov explained. “You see me with a smile. I’m a positive person. Deep down, I’m hurt. I hate losing. Simple as that. But it’s life… hopefully in the future I will be able to turn that around. There’s still going to come a day that I feel I can do that or beat him on that surface.”
So what makes it so hard to defeat Nadal, especially on the clay? For Dimitrov he believes his problem isn’t so much to do with ability. He believes his downfall concerns consistency and durability against the world No.1. Dimitrov has recorded 23 wins over top 10 players during his career with eight of those occurring last year.
“He’s playing very good on clay. Simple as that. Tactically and everything else.” He said.
“I felt I played not a bad match against him in terms of the way I was moving and the way I was placing the ball. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep on doing that for the extent that I had to.”
The challenge now for Dimitrov is to continue his momentum until the French Open, which has become a tournament of nightmares for him. He has only managed to win five main draw matches at Roland Garros, losing in the first round in three out of the last four years. Ironically, it was on the clay when he won his maiden ATP title at the 2014 Bucharest Open in Romania.
“It was great to start [the clay-court season] again on a good note. I mean, today was also maybe the match that I moved the best out of everything,” he concluded. “I see a lot of positives for the upcoming weeks.”
Dimitrov will return to action next week at the Barcelona Open.
