Grigor Dimitrov looks to make his third quarter-final of the year against Alex Bogomolov in Los Angeles tonight.
The jury’s still out on Dimitrov, the 20 year old Bulgarian who was the pick of the rising stars going into this season. At a career high of 57 in the world, it’s been a solid season for him but there’s been few signs that he’s the ‘next Federer’ as many media outlets predicted at the start of the year.
Instead Dimitrov’s been rather overshadowed by the exploits of Bernard Tomic and Ryan Harrison. He will be hoping to put that right over the next month and this is the sort of event where he needs to step up a level and show what he’s capable of.
He impressed on Tuesday night with a 6-3, 6-2 win over veteran Tommy Haas in the night season and now he has a key match against American journeyman Alex Bogomolov in the second round later today.
Bogomolov knows the pitfalls of high expectations only too well. He was labelled the future of the game a decade ago but has spent much of his career languishing at challenger level.
He’s enjoying a late career resurgence this year but this is the sort of match Dimitrov really needs to be winning on a regular basis.
Prediction: Dimitrov in three.
