LONDON—The question began to crop up on Twitter after the second set: “Ernie can’t actually win this, can he?”

The answer? You might call it the equivalent of a shrug emoji.

“Who knows? Anything’s possible with him.”

That’s a pretty good summation of the loquacious Latvian’s topsy-turvy career. Anything’s possible. The highs are dizzyingly high: a trip to the Top 10, a run to a French Open semifinal, wins over Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. And the lows are catastrophically low: a ranking of 589 and a 13-month stretch without a main-draw victory. Unfortunately for Gulbis, those last two stats represent where he stood at the start of Wimbledon on Monday.

“I didn’t check my ranking because really it gets me a little bit depressed when I see this number,” Gulbis joked to Reem Abulliel of Sport 360. “It’s a disaster.”

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Gulbis, who will turn 29 next month, and who first made a name for himself with his run to the quarterfinals at the French Open in 2008, has had injury problems. Lots of them. There was the wrist issue that kept him out for the last half of 2016. There was the calf tear that set him back at the start of 2017. There was the abdominal tear he suffered a few weeks ago at a Challenger event in the Czech Republic.

But even as Gulbis’ ranking has headed south, and he vanished from the game’s big events, he never lost his fans. A bad boy with a knack for a good—and controversial—quote, he has retained a cult following. How many other guys in the Top 500 have inspired a fan-club account and a parody account on Twitter? Funny and honest to a fault, he may have been missed in the media room more than anywhere else.

So it wasn’t surprising to see a full house for Gulbis’ first press conference at Wimbledon—and his first at any tournament in more than a year—on Thursday. The occasion was his stunning/sorta-not-stunning 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over No. 29 seed Juan Martin del Potro. It was stunning for the obvious reason that Gulbis had won one match in 13 months. But for anyone who knows Gulbis’ talent, it was believable, too. One of those people was Del Potro.

“He has a good day,” Delpo said, “he can beat all the guys on tour.”

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By the fifth game, you could see that Gulbis was having a good day. He’s known for his bomb serve and his I-wanna-be-a-surfer forehand, but Gulbis is just as good, and more varied, from the backhand side. With Del Potro serving at 2-2 in the first set, he tracked down a drop shot and poked it perfectly into the corner with his backhand. He won the next point with a backhand drop shot. And he closed out the service break by blistering a backhand down the line for a winner.

“I played well in my first-round match,” Gulbis said. “This match I played really, really great tennis. I served well, I returned well.”

Gulbis was especially pleased that, despite Twitter’s warnings of a collapse, he survived his nerves.

“I was happy that in the third set,” he said, “even [though] I got a little bit maybe tight, and he played well when he broke me back ... I still managed to win in the tiebreak.”

Gulbis’ play has drawn attention, and so has his appearance. He’s sporting a hipster-mountain man beard this week. There are calls for him to shave it, but he says he’s not listening to them. It suits his new man-at-peace mien.

“Just, to be honest, a little lazy to shave,” he said when asked if the beard was for good luck. “It’s not a style thing. Just how it is, you know?”

Gulbis recently became engaged, and on Thursday the sarcastic, calculated-to-outrage edge of his younger years was nowhere to be seen or heard. He was all easygoing smiles.

“I was very relaxed,” Gulbis said of his attitude about playing Del Potro. “Didn’t surprise me because I’m in a relaxed state of mind right now coming into this tournament ... I’ve been hitting the ball well already for more than a month.”

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Gulbis ranged over a number of tour topics. He talked about how well he and Novak Djokovic (his next opponent) got along when they practiced together in Germany as kids.

“We didn’t have enough time to become really close friends,” he said. “We had a really nice relationship, a really good relationship.”

He talked about Bernard Tomic, who was dropped by his racquet sponsor, Head, for his comments about lacking committment this week.

“He’s a nice guy,” Gulbis said of Bernie. “He’s not a bad guy. It’s just the way he says things sometimes, you know, it’s maybe too straightforward.” Gulbis knows from experience. “Sometimes you get in this position. This is unfortunate.”

He talked about watching his friend and fellow Latvian, Jelena Ostapenko, win the French Open.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “This is really unbelievable ... I’m extremely happy for her and for Latvia, that we have such a great player.”

And he talked about his chances in his next round, against Djokovic.

“I had nothing to lose also in this match, and I played well,” Gulbis said. “I’m going to have even less to lose next match.”

“Maybe I’ll play even better,” he said, his smile turning into a laugh.

It would be stunning if he did. And sorta not.

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Gulbis' win over Del Potro was stunning—but kind of not stunning, too

Gulbis' win over Del Potro was stunning—but kind of not stunning, too

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