Grigor Dimitrov pulled the stunner; defeats Novak Djokovic in round two – Mutua Madrid Open 2013
Biggest surprise of the tournament was witnessed on Tuesday afternoon when the world number one, Novak Djokovic, suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the Bulgarian underdog, Grigor Dimitrov, in the second round of Mutua Madrid
Open. The 28th ranked youngster battled for three hours and five minutes before pulling out the absolute stunner at the clay courts of Madrid, Spain. He settled the final score line at 7-6(6), 6-7(8), 6-3, in his favour to reach the pre-quarter-final
round of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.
The top seeded Serb had defeated Dimitrov in their last two encounters. He first took down the Bulgarian at Shanghai Masters last year in straight sets and then again this year’s Indian Wells Masters tournament. However, the 21-year-old
Bulgarian paid him back this week with some of the most amazing pin-point hitting and improved 1-2 in the FedEx Head-2-Head series against him. No one expected Dimitrov to hunt down the reigning world number one player but the youngster beat all the odds to
register the biggest win of his professional career so far.
"Of course this has been what I've been working for, to play matches like that, and why not win them?" Dimitrov said. "Today was one of these days that I felt good on court. I felt I had enough hours of practice in the weeks before.
I felt that I could actually hang with Novak the whole match. That's the whole purpose of getting ready for big events and eventually for big matches."
The contest took off in a conventional manner, with both players holding their serves in the opening 10 games. The set entered a tie-break round after an exchange of break points in the 11th and 12th games.
Djokovic was going fine until a crucial mini-break from Dimitrov turned the entire scenario. The Bulgarian took the first set at 7-6(6).
The following set followed pretty much the same pattern as the opener and the scores again got dead locked at 6-6. This time it was Djokovic who managed to manoeuvre his way through the tie-break and claimed the second set at 7-6(8).
Tide turned in the decisive set when Dimitrov broke the Serbian serve in the very first game and kept on belting assertive winners. Another cracking break of serve from the Bulgarian in the ninth game drew the curtains for the
world number one and Dimitrov came out victorious at 6-3.
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