Almost all of us likely want to see Grigor Dimitrov do well, right? He is one of the most likable players in tennis and is seemingly a very nice person. He gets along with fellow players and fans and rooting against him just seems, well…wrong. Thankfully for both him and his fans, he has regained the kind of form that got him to as high of a No. 3 ranking in 2017.
Dimitrov has long been dubbed “Baby Fed” as he plays with the kind of poise and flare that tennis great Roger Federer did, though with different styles otherwise. It might also say quite a bit, too, that both Federer and Dimitrov have never seemed to have had a harsh word for another player. He respects other people as well as being respected himself.
In fact, his friends appear to stay loyal to him, so much so that former players will show up to watch him play. This happened during the Miami Open when all-time great Serena Williams showed up to watch Dimitrov. Williams sat in the crowd and cheered as hard as any other fan as Dimitrov made a run to the final.
Grigor Dimitrov discusses his friendship with Serena Williams.
In a post-match press conference after winning his semifinal match against Alexander Zverev, the Bulgarian was asked about Williams watching the match and he said, “She’s amazing, we stayed in touch and she told me she would come and see me; tennis is tennis, but this is friendship and it’s one of the best things here, we’re all living our dream.”
Of course, Williams was a great player and loves the sport, but it is another thing altogether to take time out of one’s schedule to travel to watch a friend play. As Dimitrov implies, that is real friendship. It should also be noted that Williams was on hand earlier in the day to watch Jannik Sinner play Daniil Medvedev.
Maybe that should have jokingly been a storyline heading into the Miami Open final between Dimitrov and Sinner: The battle for Serena Williams’ friendship. More likely, Sinner, Williams, and Dimitrov are just all nice people who like being around other nice people. We should all be so lucky.