A bit like the song of the cuckoo signalling the arrival of springtime, the first sighting of Grigor Dimitrov at Wimbledon means summer is in full swing.
This is his 15th tilt at the title in the past 17 years and, with his 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 win over Corentin Moutet, he moved carefully into the third round.
Forced to withdraw from his opening match at Roland-Garros due to a left hip and thigh
issue (he was two sets to the good when it happened and had to pull out after losing
the third set), he is desperately short of match play so he was relieved to come through
three hours and 38 minutes of hard graft unscathed.
“Honestly, I’m just very happy with the match,” he said. “I have not been playing my best tennis but being able to go through a match like that gives me enough to look forward to the next one and kind of reassess my game a little bit. Also see where I’m at physically.
“It was three-plus hours so I’m feeling OK. My energy is a bit low at the moment but,
other than that, I really enjoyed it.”
Dimitrov is 34 now, one of the veterans of the Tour. When he started out, he was tipped as the first real threat to the Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
Yet for all his talents and all the years of trying, he has reached three Grand Slam semi-finals and no more. Not that he has any regrets.
The 24-year-old Dimitrov would not have wanted to know what the 34-year-old Dimitrov knows now; in the latter stages of his career, he is a man happy in his own skin.
You need to know your whys: why you play tennis, why you want to keep on going, why you want to go through this type of thing with your body.
“The way I’ve lived my life is very, I think, different,” he said with a knowing smile.
“I, for one, haven’t really followed within the lines for the bigger chunk of my career. I don’t know if I should say I’m proud of it or not. I would have loved to know certain things and I would have not wanted to know a big other chunk of that, so I feel like I’ve lived the way I wanted to live and I have no, like, regrets.
“In terms of my game, yes, I could have maybe tried certain things earlier in my career but again I don’t think that would have made a huge difference.
“When you get a little bit older, your challenge becomes very different. It’s not the players any more. It’s not winning or losing. It’s your own battle. You need to know your whys: why you play tennis, why you want to keep on going, why you want to go through this type of thing with your body.
“My whys, my challenges, are all mine now. It has nothing to do almost with the sport any more because I love the sport itself.”
That love of his sport was evident in every game of his match with Moutet. This was old-school tennis and it was a delight to watch.
There was Dimitrov’s one-handed backhand; there was serving and volleying, deft touches, drop shots, the constructing of points with care and guile and a not a little cheeky-chappy hustle.
It was also that rare thing – a match that was won with winners.
That is not as daft as it sounds. So many matches are won by avoiding mistakes.
Relentless efficiency can take a player a long way in this game and even desperately tight battles can be alarmingly light on outright winners.
But not with Dimitrov and Moutet. Between them, they had racked up 16 of them in the first three games. By the end, they had amassed 108, 64 of them for Dimitrov.
Moutet says that in another life he would be a musician. He is doing his best in his present existence: he plays the piano and raps and released an eight-song album called ‘Ecorche’ (‘Skin’) a few years back.
Certainly, his game has artistic flair and his game plan looks like it could have been devised by a group of painters, writers and philosophers in a smoky, Parisian café over tar-black coffees and a glass or two of absinthe.
Actually, when Moutet did try a running forehand pass that curled agonisingly around Dimitrov’s flailing racket, it did bring up a break point but it didn’t blow the Bulgarian’s mind.
Instead, he applauded enthusiastically.
There was quite a bit of that on No.3 Court – one Dimitrov drop shot that crept over the net and expired on the grass with barely a whisper of a bounce drew instant praise from Moutet.
He knew artistry when he saw it. And there was so much to see. But as the match wore on, Dimitrov started to up the ante.
He was more powerful from the back of the court and just as effective as his rival at the net. He was keeping Moutet at arm’s length and that was enough to see him through.