2024-09-24 01:32:26
Grigor Dimitrov’s fans celebrated another title, but not quite.
The pleasure remained incomplete because the best Bulgarian tennis player in history “forgot” to fulfill the promise he made half-heartedly before the Laver Cup matches.
At Uber Hall in Berlin, Team Europe overcame a 4-8 deficit heading into the final day to win 13-11 against the World squad.
Thus, the players from the Old Continent collected for the fifth time the trophy, which bears the name of the great Australian – the only one who made a “Grand Slam” twice within one calendar year.
Grigor Dimitrov brought a point to his team after showing incredible performances and managed 7:6 (7:4), 7:6 (7:2) with Alejandro Tabillo (Chile). The former world No. 3 was also scheduled to play doubles with Roland Garros and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday. However, instead of Dimitrov, Kasper Ruud appeared on the court in the German capital. Assistant captain Thomas Enqvist later explained that the reason Grigor did not play was the reoccurring injury that caused him to withdraw from matches with Danil Medvedev (his teammate in Berlin) at Wimbledon and Francesca Tiafoe at the US Open. The American was in the World team.
At the press conference before the start, Alexander Zverev said that Grigor Dimitrov should strip naked to the waist for the European title, as he did at the request of Novak Djokovic during the show with the record holder of Grand Slam titles in Sofia. The gesture of our tennis player should be towards the captain – the Swedish legend Björn Borg, who is leading the European team for the last time.
The victory was celebrated in the dressing room with a lot of champagne, with Dimitrov being particularly active. He kept pouring into the bowl and making Alcaraz drink. At the meeting with the journalists, however, the issue of Grigor’s promise inevitably came up.
“I don’t remember. Can you remind me what I said?”, replied Zverev. Dimitrov reacted in much the same way and stated that he also did not remember. At that moment, the rest of the team started shouting: “We want to see, we want to see!”.
“All the boys saw me naked in the dressing room”, was the reaction of our tennis player, who won the Laver Cup in 2018 in Chicago.
Dimitrov and one of his coaches – Jamie Delgado, went to Asia for the tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai.