Grigor Dimitrov suffered a disappointment at the Mexican Open after crashing out in the first round in less than 90 minutes.
Dimitrov, who was unseeded at the ATP 500 event, suffered a 6-3, 6-3 loss to France’s Terence Atmane. A player ranked 19 places lower than him at 63rd in the world. The 2014 champion struggled with his second serve throughout the match, winning just six out of 23 points played. He is now on a four-match losing streak, with his last victory being at the Brisbane International when he beat Pablo Carreno Busta in the first round.
Leading up to his latest tournament, Dimitrov made a change to his team by adding David Nalbandian as coach. This is in addition to Xavier Malisse, whom he added to his coaching setup at the start of this year.
“I knew them separately, and it also helps when you’ve played against them a few times,” Dimitrov told atptour.com earlier this week. “It’s nice when you can relate to someone that you have played. They have been retired for over 10 years, but it’s also not that long ago.
“At the beginning, when I got into conversations with them, we really started to see things similarly and I could relate to them in terms of the timing of their careers, injuries, game plan, thoughts, and all of that. In a way, it happened so naturally. Right now, we are still finding our footing, because it’s very new for all of us, but things are very clear of what needs to be done and how we want to tackle the game.”
Dimitrov’s only Tour-level meeting with Nalbandian was at the 2012 Queen’s Championships, where he lost to the Argentine in the semi-finals. Nalbandian was then famously defaulted from the final of that tournament for kicking an advertising board, which split and ended up cutting the leg of the official sitting behind it.
The Bulgarian will be hoping to get some momentum back in America, which will stage two Masters events in Indian Wells and Miami next month.
Dimitrov wasn’t the only notable casualty on the second day of the event. Third seed Casper Ruud suffered a 7-6(2), 7-6(1) loss to China’s Wu Yibing. The Norwegian is the third top 20 player Wu has beaten in his career, after Taylor Fritz and Daniil Medvedev. Ruud’s exit comes a day after Alex de Minaur and Cameron Norrie also crashed out.
There was better news for top seed Alexander Zverev, who beat Corentin Moutet 6-2, 6-4. Zverev has now won 39 out of 40 matches against left-handed players since the 2023 French Open. His sole loss was against Learner Tien last year in Acapulco.
“Corentin can be a tricky opponent, especially if you haven’t played matches in a while, like myself,” said Zverev. “So definitely happy with the performance, and looking forward to what’s ahead.”
Flavio Cobolli, Frances Tiafoe and Gael Monfils also won their matches to join Zverev in the second round.
