Exhibition match

Great lineup for "only" a quarterfinal of an ATP 250.

It's Dimitrov's fault, he’s dropped down the rankings and has to grind like back in the day. The Bulgarian is very motivated this week. You can feel he’s really lacking confidence and results. He’s pumping himself up as if it were a Masters 1000 and he could pull off something big, even though this is a small tournament. But it’s important for him to get his form, his confidence, and also his results back. I think he’s starting to build up a bit, or at least his matches are less bad than before, but I don’t get the impression that he’s dominating. He’s pretty laboured and not calm at all. It doesn’t exactly ooze confidence every time. And that was only against Polmans and Shelbayh. Tomorrow he’ll face a much stronger opponent and I’m afraid he might get stuck.

Because Fokina, right now, is seriously heavy stuff. In Stuttgart, despite the loss against Bellucci, the level was good. At Queen’s, I loved his tournament where he only lost to Paul, and really in a good-quality match. For his opening match in Mallorca, he just got past Walton relatively easily, who’s in good form and not an easy guy to play. We’ve got a very good Fokina playing at home, motivated and in form. It’s starting to add up for the Spaniard, who is capable of playing at a super high level when he’s in this state.

Sure, Dimitrov is getting a bit of confidence and form back, but for me, he’s still far from Fokina’s current level. I rate the Spaniard very highly at the moment.