Grigor Dimitrov was quite distraught after losing the Paris-Bercy to Novak Djokovic. After the match the Bulgarian has said that he is not ashamed of crying on court and explained that his tears on court in front of the Paris crowd were not caused by sadness.
The World No. 14 that the emotions got better of him after the losing to 24-time Major champion but felt that his Paris campaign was positive enough to celebrate and gave his spirit something to cheer on. However, despite rating the final run as an encouraging source for his being, he conceded that he was broken down by the lost final.
“It’s difficult to explain emotions, I think,” Dimitrov said when asked why he broke down after the loss.
“You want it. You know, it’s tough when it doesn’t happen. Only I know, in a way, without, like, feeling sorry for myself, what I’ve gone through the past months on and off the court.
“Those are happy tears. I don’t want to have them as something negative. I’m human, after all. At the end of the day, I think just the buildup not only of the last two weeks, the last months of hard work and the big trip in China, everything has been kind of, in a way, snowballing like day after day, match after match.
“Of course in the end I was so close to making something that I wanted to do for such a long time. I don’t want to have this as a goal is just to win the tournament, but it was just more of my mental and physical way that I was dealing with and through these past months.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not ashamed of them. It just happened. I’m sad. Of course I’m sad that I lost. It’s never fun when you lose in a final. I think for me now I have some time to reflect and move on.”
Dimitrov confessed that he fell short of the level required to compete with Djokovic who was just better than him. He lauded the 36-year-old, ATP #1 for producing the best tennis even when he is struggling physically.
“Yeah, I think today, specifically today, his depth was amazing I think on the ball,” Dimitrov remarked.
“Even if he was not feeling maybe physically at his best and all that, but he was able to put me in a very uncomfortable position and made me work for every shot. I also think my serve today didn’t work at all.
“Overall I was a little bit flat. That’s also my, like, summary of the match. But of course Novak in the finals is probably one of the biggest achievement you can have in our sport to beat him.
“I mean, so much respect for him. The way he’s competing on the court is, I think, I mean, on a completely different level. I have said it before. I think also when it comes to those clutch matches, he’s always been able to maximize his game, even if it’s not at his best, but he’s been able to maximize and put you in uncomfortable situations.
“On that end today I think he executed a lot of points and games in a very good way.”