Jannik Sinner: Grigor Dimitrov hasn’t forgotten their dramatic previous match
Nearly a year after the serious injury that forced him to retire in the Wimbledon round of 16 against Jannik Sinner, Grigor Dimitrov has spoken again about that moment, which had a profound impact on his career. The Bulgarian tennis player, a former world No. 3, reflected on the incident during a conversation with Stefanos Tsitsipas and Patrick Mouratoglou on the sidelines of a UTS tour event, describing it without hesitation as “an out-of-body experience.”
“We were at 2-1 in the third set, and I was hitting some incredible serves. I wasn’t forcing anything; everything was flowing great—it was all perfect. I was telling myself, ‘I’m having so much fun today. Everything’s working, everything’s going perfectly—it’s amazing.’ I went up to serve, and the exact moment I hit the ball, I heard the same sound as when my shorts had ripped. But it wasn’t my shorts…”.
The Bulgarian said he initially tried to ignore the problem: “I went to the net to hit a volley, but my arm was down, so I just hit it however it came. Then suddenly I started feeling very dizzy; I felt an intense pain, like a rush of blood. I thought, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ I didn’t understand. I told myself, ‘Calm down, you’re fine.’” Dimitrov explained that he tried one last serve to see if he could continue: “I decided to serve one more time to see if everything was okay. But I heard that sound again—like a ‘pop.’ I served wide, and I don’t even know how I managed to get an ace.”
That ace allowed him to tie the score at 2-2 in the third set, but in reality, the match was already over. The sensations he felt immediately afterward were unsettling: “The moment I finished my serve, I felt as if my arm were on the other side of the court. It felt dead. Then, since it was more or less in the center of my chest, I thought there might be something wrong with my heart, so I sat down hoping it would pass.”
Television footage showed the Bulgarian sitting on the grass while Sinner crossed the net to check on him. In the locker room, the severity of the injury was confirmed: “When I left the court and went to the physical therapists, they took off my shirt and you could see the muscle that had shifted from here to here; it was moving under the skin, kind of like it was dancing. They looked at me and said, ‘I don’t think you can keep playing.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I figured as much.’ I couldn’t even lift my arm….” The diagnosis was a partial tear of the right pectoralis major muscle, a rare but extremely delicate injury in tennis. Dimitrov avoided surgery, undergoing a long course of conservative rehabilitation.
