When you’re called “Baby Fed”, that puts a lot of pressure on you as a player.  Not everyone that’s been given such a nickname does well.  There was a guy named Harold Miner who was called “Baby Jordan”,  and nothing much came of him.  There is a French player, Josselin Ouanna, who vaguely looks like Gael Monfils, but he’s still struggling to be a good player.

Grigor Dimitrov’s game, on the surface, resembles the great Swiss.  His technique on forehand and backhand bears a striking resemblance to Federer’s game, but up until last year, he had had no great successes.  Even entering this tournament, he had only ever beaten one top ten player, and that was Tomas Berdych who, until recently, was prone to upsets by lower ranked player, such as the risky/inconsistent nature of Berdych’s game.  Indeed, Dimitrov has beaten Berdych in both their previous meetings, once in 2009 and once in 2012.

His second top ten win was in Monte Carlo itself beating Janko Tipsarevic who seems likely to slide out of the top ten given his level of play this year.

The match could be summed up in four parts.  The first part was a close two games at the start of the match where it seemed Dimitrov might be competitive with Rafa.  The second part was Rafa racing to a double break win, thus suggesting that Dimitrov’s ascendancy would once be delayed by the greatest clay court player ever.  The third part was Dimitrov taking the second set in dominating fashion.  That feat alone, regardless of what happened in the third set, would have been amazing given how few times he’s been made to play more than 2 sets at Monte Carlo in a decade’s time (apparently, 6 times, with only one loss).

The third set notably tightened up, with Dimitrov putting in just enough errors that he couldn’t quite secure a break, and then, for the early going, being able to hold his serve moderately easily.  But as the match wore longer, Dimitrov was starting to make just enough mistakes and eventually lost his serve.  Dimitrov kept it interesting in the 5-4 game by powering a forehand down the line down 30-40, and saved match point, but could not fend off the Mallorcan who eventually hit an unreturned serve to clinch the match and keep his hopes for a 9th consecutive title alive.

Although comparisons are made to Federer, Dimitrov plays differently.  While Federer is often standing close to the baseline and wants to be aggressive, Dimitrov was willing to stand quite far back.  Dimitrov could then spin his backhand up high and give Nadal issues.  There were times where Dimitrov looked like he could have gone for a winner, but kept the point going on, showing a greater willingness to play defense.  To be fair, Rafa didn’t play that sharp in the match and he was making uncharacteristic errors.  He had to hold back on his style of play as well which may be why Dimitrov stayed so close.

Dimitrov also likes to switch up where his backhand goes, often alternating crosscourts with down the lines, and he seems to prefer the short crosscourt that lands at the service line as well as some higher loopers that land a bit shorter.  Dimitrov took some chances on return, trying to hit very deep, and that kept Rafa at bay.

Dimitrov certainly could have won this match.  If he had been a bit bolder and a bit luckier, he might have won, but such are the margins of tennis.

And, in the category of “Can Stan ever catch a break?”, the answer seems to be no.  Wawrinka started the match strong with a double break lead, but then lost serve which lead Tsonga to take the second set, 6-3.  The third set was relatively tight, but Tsonga came to net a bit more often and eventually secured the break and ultimately the match.  He’ll face Rafa in the next round.

The other quarterfinals slated for today are Richard Gasquet against Fabio Fognini (Fognini is up 6-0 in the first set tiebreak so seems certain to win that set) and Djokovic against Nieminen, who upset del Potro yesterday.   We do seem headed for a Djokovic-Nadal final.