Just had a closer look at Dimitrov's results. Clearly it's not just the LTA who have had the wool pulled over their eyes by his agent and/or one good result. In the last 12 months, he has received:

- 3 WCs into ATPs
- 2 WCs into ATP qualifying
- 10 WCs into Challengers

he's lost his first match in these tournaments 12 times, mainly in straight sets including a few bagels, including R1 losses in all but one of those Challenger main draws.

In the other three cases, he has won one match before going out. One of them, in the Bangkok Challenger, was against fellow qWC Peeraklit Sirabutwong, who still hasn't made the top 1000, and another was an 8-6 in the 3rd set t/b victory against Jiri Vanek (ranked 145 at the moment) in Basel qualifying.

The week that has seen the number of WCs he's getting accelerate was Rotterdam week, when he beat Berdych (no doubt having one of his Berdbrain days) in R1 then took a set off Rafa, who must have been having a really off day - Rafa of course praised him to the skies to disguise his embarrassment.

He must have backed this up since to be getting quite so many WCs, mustn't he? Er no, nobody involved in giving out WCs seems to have noticed that Dimitrov hasn't beaten a top 300 player since ... indeed, if you discount DC v Hungary, he has lost every match since except the one to Sirabutwong!

As for Nishikori, "a man who Rafael Nadal predicts will be a Top 10 player in the future" (that's the reason given for his WC) - well, as with Dimitrov, Rafa would say something like that after being pushed embarrassingly close by a relatively low-ranked player - all of the top players tend to over-hype opponents in that kind of situation.

I can't see the GB WCs going to anyone but Wardy and Evo, especially after this week, but how would you feel if you were Boggo, Josh, Bloomers, Slabba or Eaton and the organisation that was supposed to be supporting you was giving a WC to a Bulgarian who is lower-ranked than you are with a record of wasting WCs as bad as that?

-- Edited by steven on Friday 15th of May 2009 08:08:23 AM

Good summary, Steven!


Irrespective of how good Dimitrov turns out to be, he's easily the most overrated player I've seen since I've started following tennis.

Steven, I love your determination in researcing those Dimitrov results it makes the LTA get tough policies look as stupid as we mostly agree they are.
It all leaves me wondering what his ranking would have been without those 'gifted' ranking points.
Perhaps I am better off not knowing as it makes me so angry that it is possible to get up the rankings that way.

mjd wrote:

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It all leaves me wondering what his ranking would have been without those 'gifted' ranking points.
Perhaps I am better off not knowing as it makes me so angry that it is possible to get up the rankings that way.

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Actually, one good thing is that it's not possible to get up the rankings that way any more - it used to be possible to get well into the top 1000 on the basis of 1-pointers from Challenger WCs and 5-pointers from ATP WCs, but then they stopped awarding points for R1 losses below Masters level.

Apart from 6 points from Bangkok (which I've just realised were in the main draw, not qualifying, so I'd better amend my last post) and 45 from Rotterdam, Dimitrov has gained all of his points from Futures, having won three Futures in Spain between May and September last year. So, he'd probably be ranked a fair bit higher than 372 if he'd carried on playing Futures instead of losing in R1 of Challengers and ATPs most weeks.

At the moment he seems to be too good for Futures but not ready to do consistently well in Challengers - a problem quite a few Brits have had to try to overcome in the past. Indeed, his Challenger WC results have been unusually bad for someone that successful in Futures, so I guess that a la Donald Young, all the losses have knocked his confidence and resulted in him taking a step back from where he was 8 months ago. 

-- Edited by steven on Friday 15th of May 2009 08:09:45 AM

steven wrote:

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The week that has seen the number of WCs he's getting accelerate was Rotterdam week, when he beat Berdych (no doubt having one of his Berdbrain days) in R1 then took a set off Rafa, who must have been having a really off day - Rafa of course praised him to the skies to disguise his embarrassment.



-- Edited by steven on Friday 15th of May 2009 08:08:23 AM

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Now, now Steven, don't get too far ahead of yourself. I won't defend him wasting WCs, or the ridiculous decision by the LTA in giving a WC to an 18 year old Bulgarian ranked 300-odd, but refusing to give a WC to an 18 year old Brit ranked 300-odd because he isn't ranked high enough(!)

But i saw that match, Nadal wasn't on fire like he can be but he was playing well enough. Dimitrov looked like a top player; his serve was very strong, his forehand was strong, and his backhand was very ugly but he hits it like a tracer bullet

 He may be overrated in the extreme but he's no bum...

Dimitrov is definately a very talented player (you don't take a set off Rafa if you're not, plus the fact he was junior number 1 and won junior slams), and the fact he has taken some futures titles means that he can cut it at senior level.

It seems that players who get lots of wild cards miss out on the development stage that you get by working your way on the rankings, as by playing futures matches you learn what you can and cannot do at senior level, and while you are still learning, you can get away with more mistakes because the players aren't so good, while going straight to senior and ATP level means that you get found out easily.

Some of the WC's are okay, but getting one every week is a bit too much, and he'd have much better off working his way up the rankings in futures every few weeks - the WC that Dimitrov will get for Wimbledon is justified though as he won the junior event last season so can rightfully get a WC.

Nishikori can probably justify his WC given that he's only slipped down the rankings because of injury, which is partly what the WC's are for.

whilst our girls champion only has a QWC doesn't she?