Grigor Dimitrov continues his winning series from Acapulco and started with 6-4 6-3 win over Robin Haase of the Netherlands at BNP Baribas Open in Indian Wells, California. The Bulgarian had problems in beginning of the match and allowed Haase to break and reach a lead of 3-1 but eventually won the next 5 games to win the set. In the second round Dimitrov broke when he was leading 3-2 which decided the outcome of second set and the match.

With the won points for reaching this phase of the tournament Grigor Dimitrov defended the 45 ranking points from last and has good chances to advance further in the ranking if continues the winning series.

In the third round Grigor will play Ernests Gulbis of Latvia whom he played twice last month. Grigor lost in Rotterdam and won in Acapulco.

Grigor Dimitrov is seed No 15 of the ATP Masters in Indian Wells, USA, and skips the first round. In the second round on Sunday Grigor Dimitrov will play the winner of the first round match between Robin Haase of the Netherlands and the qualifier John-Patrick Smith of Australia.

Potential third round opponent of Dimitrov is Ernests Gulbis whom he played twice last month: Dimitrov lost in Rotterdam and won in Acapulco in his way to the title. The other seeded players in the 3rd quarter of the draw together with Dimitrov are No 4 Tomas Berdych, No 8 Richard Gasquet, No 30 Fernando Verdasco, No 22 Philipp Kohlschreiber, No 12 John Isner and No 26 Florian Mayer.

All Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Roger Federer are in the upper half of the draw while Djokovic is in the lower half.

The Bulgarian participated in the two previous editions of BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Grigor Dimitrov lost to Novak Djokovic, Serbia, in the third round last year and lost to David Ferrer, Spain, in the second round in 2012.

Grigor Dimitrov is in Indian Wells and had training sessions with Thommy Haas and Roger Federer.

With the 500 points won for the title in Acapulco Grigor Dimitrov reached new best position No 16 in ATP ranking. Grigor Dimitrov is getting closer to Top 10 as the Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who is currently at No 10 has 2785 points which are only 655 points better than Dimitrov.

In the Race to London ranking which considers only the points from this year, Grigor Dimitrov is No 6 after Stanislas Wawrinka, Rafael Nadal, Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer, David Ferrer.

Grigor won his second ATP Tour title in Acapulco. He needed almost 3 hours to defeat Kevin Anderson of South Africa in the final of Mexico Open 7-6(1) 3-6 7-6(5). After the title in Stockholm last year Grigor Dimitrov became champion in ATP 500 level tournament.

Dimitrov won 316'400 USD and 500 points which will position him as No 16, new best ever position.

After Milos Raonic Grigor Dimitrov is the second tennis player born in the 1990s with multiple ATP Tour titles.

It was Bulgarian’s fourth victory over Kevin Anderson in five meetings. Grigor Dimitrov’s win marks the first by a non-Spaniard in the Mexico Open in Acapulco in six years, withNicolas Almagro (2008, 2009), David Ferrer(2010, 2011, 2012) and Rafael Nadal (2013) having emerged victorious in that span.

As No 16 in the new ranking Grigor Dimitrov will be among the seeds 9 and 16 at Miami Masters starting next week and in the third round would play some of the seeds between 17 and 24.

Grigor Dimitrov took revenge on Ernests Gulbis of Latvia by winning in the quarterfinals at Mexico Open in Acapulco 4-6 7-6(2) 7-5. The title winner in Marseille last week Gulbis eliminated Dimitrov two weeks ago in Rotterdam.

With this win Grigor Dimitrov guaranteed his re-entry in Top 20 of the ATP single ranking.

In the semifinals on Friday night (5 am CET) Grigor Dimitrov will play Andy Murray who defeated the Bulgarian in their three previous encounters.

This week Grigor Dimitrov plays at Mexico Open, ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco. The Bulgarian is seed No 4 of the main draw. In the first round Grigor Dimitrov will play Marinko Matosevic. The 28-years-old Australian is currently at No 55. If successful, in the second round Dimitrov would play Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus or Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela, both with wild cards in the main draw. The first seeded player that Grigor would play is the Latvian Ernests Gulbis at the quarterfinals. The other seeded players in the lower part of the draw are Andy Murray and Gilles Simon. In the upper part the seeded players are: David Ferrer, John Isner, Kevin Anderson and Vasek Pospisil.

On Monday Grigor starts in the doubles tournament in partnership with the Austrian Jurgen Melzer. The draw was not lucky for them as in the first round the Bulgarian-Austrian pair will have a tough match against seed 1 pair Lukasz Kubot, Poland, and Robert Lindstedt, Sweden.

Grigor Dimitrov had to work hard to beat his friend Dmitry Tursunov of Russia in the opening round of ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournamanent in Rotterdam 6-2 1-6 6-4. Dimitrov took the first set and it seemed it would be an easy match but Tursunov turned everything around in the second set. Tursunov broke the service game of Dimitrov in the third set but the Bulgarian eventually took the victory.

"I'm glad to be back”, Dimitrov said after the match. “Rotterdam is one of my favourite tournaments. This wasn't an easy match especially because Dmitry is a good friend of mine. At the end of the match I felt very strong."

In the second round in Thursday Dimitrov will play the Latvian Ernests Gulbis.

Grigor Dimitrov entered Top 20 as No 19 after playing in the quarterfinals of the first Grand Slam Tournament of the year in Melbourne, Australia. With the 380 points won this year Grigor Dimitrov shares the 7th position in the ATP Race to London Rankings. It is based on points gained only during the current year and the top 8 players go to Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London at the end of the season.

In February Dimitrov has to defend 180 ranking points and with the 3 upcoming tournaments - ATP 250 in Zagreb, Croatia, from 3 February, ATP 500 in Rotterdam,the Netherlands, from 10 February and ATP 500 in Acapulco, Mexico, from 24 February, Grigor Dimitrov has real chances to enter Top 15.

After Australian Open there are multiple positions shifts in Top 10. The champion Stanislas Wawrinka, Swizterland, moved to from No 8 to No 3. Juan Martin del Potro of Argentine moved to No 4. Rafael Nadal, Spain, is No 1 ahead of Novak Djokovic, Serbia. David Ferrer, Spain, and Andy Murray, Great Britain, shifted to No 5 and 6. Tomas Berdych, Czech Republic, kept his 7th position while Roger Federer is now No 8. Two Frenchmen Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are No 9 and No 10 respectively.

Q. Do you think you'll look back on this match as an opportunity that got away or a step forward in your progression?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: Well, there's a lot of mixed feelings right now. I'm a bit shattered. It's tough losing that match, my first quarterfinal. I came out expecting nothing less than to win.

All the credit to Rafa. He's been a tremendous competitor, great guy off the court. We had a great battles the past year and now again, and hopefully in the future more.

The one thing I'm really excited is to actually get back on the court in the upcoming weeks and start working and come up to the same stage and try to do it again.

Of course I'm deeply disappointed. I mean, I'm not going to lie. But, you know, in the end of the day I have to take the positives and the negatives out of the match and just kind of move on.

Happy with the situation at the moment. Again, all the credit to Rafa. I think he played a great match. Also his physicality came over towards the end of the match. He's not one of the best, I think he's the best player right now.

Hopefully we're going to have more battles in the future together.

Q. You exchanged some words at the net with him. What did he say to you?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: I mean, I don't want to say what he told me. The one thing is we have tons of respect for each other, again, on and off the court. You know, he just wished me luck and, of course, all those things.

In the end of the day I know I'm going to play him again. We have a lot of jokes here and there with him, but that's great. Of course, congrats to him and I think the team. That's just how it goes in the slams, in matches like this.

You know, he's a good man.

Q. What have these two weeks done for your confidence and belief going forward?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: Confidence, yeah, obviously always going to be there in a way. It's one thing you've worked so hard and you kind of get rewarded a little bit, you know, coming to that first quarterfinal to me was, of course, big.

But I had expectations for myself. That wasn't just to go out there and play. So, you know, that's to me the biggest disappointment, the negative part of it, of course.

But in the end of the day, you know, I want to get to that position again, quarters, semis, final, whatever it is, any big tournament. That's my goal. That's why I'm actually excited to get on court in the upcoming weeks.

Of course I shed a few tears, but it should hurt. It should hurt. And it does hurt, so...

You know, I can take a lot of things, but at the moment I'm just a bit all over the place, yeah.

Q. Going into that fourth set having lost the last two tiebreaks so closely, how hard was it to go into that fourth set?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: Not easy. Not easy. I felt that he actually stepped up his game a little bit more. Again, his physicality came in even more. He held his ground better in the fourth set.

Even though I felt I had gaps here and there, he was never letting me take a charge of the point or any of his service games. He actually served really good in the fourth. We both struggled a little bit here and there occasionally, but that's in the game.

Again, I think, I mean, it's just different when you play against Rafa than any other players. In a way you know what to expect. Even though you know what to expect, sometimes it still goes his way.

But I'm excited. I'm excited. I think in a way the fourth set could have gone either way. Depends of the start. But, you know, the outcome wasn't very positive for me.

Q. Rafa said after the match that you have all the qualities to become a great champion. Do words like that mean something to you?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: It's nice to hear. It's nice to hear, you know. I'm flattered. But till it actually happens, even if you say it, it doesn't justify the presence [sic]. We know each other, me and him.

Again, tons of respect for each other. I appreciate what he said, of course. But I think I still have a long way to go out there and I need to improve. I need to improve every day. I felt that, you know, those two weeks, even though I haven't played my best tennis throughout the whole weeks, I still felt I've improved.
Actually the work that I've done in the past months, it actually comes in. To me, at that stage, at that point, that's the most important thing. It's good to refresh a little bit and get back.

Q. You mentioned his physicality in the fourth set. Do you see that's an area of your game you still need to improve?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: I think in a way. I think every player, if you just look around, you know, you need your legs. That's basically just what it is nowadays. The game has become so physical throughout all the years. You know only the strong guys are surviving.

You see up in the last eight out here, I mean, all those guys are Grand Slam champions. They're experienced guys. They're strong guys. Of course, everything has to, of course, build up and take its toll until you actually reach that stage.

But of course, I mean, I have areas. I know I have areas that I can definitely improve even more. I think it's just what I have right now is still work in progress. When I come out on the court or in the gym every day, I don't work for the day after. I look in the future.

At the end of the day, tennis is not a sprint. It's a marathon sport. You play five sets here, best of five. You know, it's always nice to see where you're at, especially in events like that.

Q. If you had that forehand again on the set point...

GRIGOR DIMITROV: Go out there now.

Q. Sorry. Would you go the same way? Were you worried about his forehand?

GRIGOR DIMITROV: Which one?

Q. Second set.

GRIGOR DIMITROV: What about the first? I'm more mad about the first one.

What can I say? It hurts. You know, I'm happy that I took the decision. Once you take decision, never look back. Same thing in life: you make mistakes, you make mistakes. It's in the past.

Obviously I got to put that in the past. You know, it's just a tough shot, you know (tearing up). It's a tough choice. I'm sure I could have done something different. I'm sure I could have done something different.
But in a match everything comes down to a split of a second. You know, it's whether in or out.

Grigor Dimitrov started the quarterfinal match at Australian Open against world No 1 Rafael Nadal with early break and eventually took the first set. Despite the tough play by Grigor the Spaniard reached the victory 3-6 7-6(3) 7-6(7) 6-2. Grigor made two forehand errors at 6-6 and 7-8 in the tie-break of the third set which were very decisive for breaking the balance of the powers and Nadal taking the lead. Grigor Dimitrov showed cleaner tennis play with booming services and crushing forehands.

When asked about the missed opportunities Dimitrov was very close to tears."What can I say? It hurts," said Dimitrov. "You know, I'm happy that I took the decision. Once you take [a] decision, never look back. Same thing in life: you make mistakes, you make mistakes. It's in the past."

Grigor Dimitrov deserves all the applauses for his brilliant participation at this year's edition of Australian Open. The young Bulgarian leaves with almost quarter million US dollars and 360 points which will position him at No 19, new best ever ranking.

Dimitrov will not be part of the Bulgarian national team at Davis Cup match against Finland next week. The next tournaments where Grigor Dimitrov is in the player lists are in Zagreb, Croatia from 3 February, Rotterdam, the Netherlands - 10 February, Acapulco, Mexico - 24 February and the masters in Indian Wells and Miami, USA, in March.