Grigor's Grass Groove

This year’s Wimbledon has had something of a 2014 feeling, hasn’t it? Simona Halep is cruising, Lucie Safarova is winning, Eugenie Bouchard is back on Centre Court, and Garbiñe Muguruza is crashing out early.

But the biggest déjà vu moment of The Championships came on the men’s side on Thursday on Court 1. That’s where Grigor Dimitrov turned back the clock 24 months in his 6-3, 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-4 second-round win over Gilles Simon. For the first time in a long time, there was life in Dimitrov’s eyes, stick on his shots, and a purpose to his step. The much-traveled, sometimes-beleagured 25-year-old Bulgarian looked at home again among the tennis fans of London, who have always brought out this flashy shotmaker’s best.

It was at Queen’s Club that Dimitrov made his earliest marks on the pro tour, and it was at Wimbledon in 2014 that he reached his first and so far only Grand Slam semifinal. In those days, Dimitrov was a member of the Top 10, and in many people’s eyes a future No. 1. So far, though, tennis’s future has gone in a very different direction. Dimitrov entered this year’s Wimbledon ranked 37th. His last notable act was a multi-game meltdown that he had suffered on his way to being defaulted from the Istanbul final in April. Since then, Dimitrov had lost in the first round of all five events he’d entered.

Now it was as if the last two years—or at least the last two months—had never happened. Against Simon, Dimitrov had full command of his varied arsenal. He stood tall on the baseline and hit his targets in the corners. He put a backhand pass right on the sideline chalk. He carved under a drop shot that crawled over the net and, much to the surprise of the commentators and the disgust of Simon, found the line.

“I so nearly said, ‘What a stupid shot,’” Tim Henman admitted in the BBC booth, “and then it turns out to be the perfect drop shot.”

The best part of Dimitrov’s performance was how he played when things weren’t going smoothly, and the balls had stopped finding the lines. After winning the first two sets, he lost the third and went down a break in the fourth. He seemed to have been caught up in the Simon vortex, which was leading inexorably to a five-setter. But Dimitrov, after nearly falling behind a second break, gritted his teeth and won the tough points, and the last four games, for the match. That, more than anything else, is what has been missing over the last two years. Simon isn’t a Top 10 player, but this counts as a quality win for Dimitrov, who had lost four of their five previous meetings.

According to Dimitrov, there’s no one thing he can point to that has changed this week.

“I think 2014, was like throughout the whole year, I had this fantastic year,” he said on Tuesday. “But now I’m just feeling in a way just as good. I’m very happy when I start striking the ball the way I was striking it today...I was just focusing again on the tennis. That was the most important thing for me, and I just kept practicing, practicing, practicing. It seems to be good for now.”

“There's just so many components I think in the game that I just felt were not up to speed with everything.”

Dimitrov has a wide-ranging attack; his one-handed backhand and aggressive mindset give him a lot of options—or “components,” as he says. But when you have a lot of options, you have to choose them wisely. Dimitrov has talked this week about the “uncertainties” he has felt in his game.

It’s an uncertainty, a hesitation, that has been written on his face for the better part of two years. During that time Dimitrov often seemed to be going through the motions. He failed to make himself available for the 2014 World Tour Finals in London, despite qualifying as an alternate, and I’ve wondered at times whether he might just call it quits. All of the frustration came out in Istanbul, but Dimitrov didn’t hit bottom until the French Open, where he lost a five-setter to Viktor Troicki in the first round.

“Sometimes it’s scary, of course,” he said after that match. “It’s just really scary.”

One problem with Dimitrov’s game is that as dynamic as it is, he doesn’t own any unstoppable weapons that he can hit without thinking. The Baby Federer moniker has, unfortunately, turned out to be too true: He has Federer’s form, but he doesn’t have the same pop on his shots. Dimitrov isn’t a knockout artist, but he isn’t a rock-solid defender, either. He needs to hit a lot of very good shots, and construct a lot of very good points, to win.

Certain players, when they get to Wimbledon, can shake off a slump and thrive on a dime: Federer, Venus Williams, and Petra Kvitova are three of the All England's many superfans. Dimitrov seems to be another. When the big points arrived against Simon, it was Dimitrov who looked certain of what to do.

“When I finished my last tournament on clay,” he said this week, “I was like, 'Oh God. Thank God.'"

Next up is Steve Johnson, and after that Federer himself. During his first-round press conference, Dimitrov told reporters, “I’m not fearing anyone.”

Right at that moment, a grinning Novak Djokovic popped his head in and asked, “Are you sure you’re not?”

“No, Dimitrov answered, “Especially you!”

Whether that’s actually true or not. Dimitrov said it with a smile, and that’s a start.