WASHINGTON, July 28, 2020 (by Michael Dickens)
Grigor Dimitrov admits he’s “lucky to be on court right now.” Just last month, the 19th-ranked Bulgarian made huge news by being the first big-name tennis player – male or female – to test positive for the coronavirus five weeks ago. He pulled out of the second leg of the ill-fated Adria Tour in Zadar, Croatia, after playing Borna Coric. Dimitrov’s disclosure resulted in the cancellation of that weekend’s final between Novak Djokovic and Andrey Rublev and, ultimately, shut down the remainder of the Adria Tour after Djokovic, Viktor Troicki and Coric all tested positive for the coronavirus within days of each other.
Recently, Dimitrov told Tennis Majors he’s still experiencing the physical effects of the illness after recovering from Covid-19. He made his return to competitive tennis over the weekend at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy where he’s playing in the Ultimate Tennis Showdown 2. He dropped seven of nine sets in losing both of his matches, to Richard Gasquet and Feliciano Lopez, over the weekend and will return Saturday to face Alexei Popyrin.
“The movement is getting better,” said Dimitrov. “Everything else is kind of going in the right direction, but still not easy to I think recover. The virus was hard on me, I stayed home for about a month. Tired, all the symptoms, everything you could think, so it was no fun. I’m just trying to put effort every day right now.”
Grigor Dimitrov tells @Tennis_Majors he’s still recovering after testing positive for COVID-19 five weeks ago.#UTShowdown pic.twitter.com/2ZnfQhHnSl
— UTS | Ultimate Tennis Showdown (@UTShowdown) July 27, 2020
