Bulgarian fourth seed Grigor Dimitrov booked a Queen’s Club final clash against Feliciano Lopez with an impressive 6-2, 6-4 win over world No. 3 Stan Wawrinka on Saturday.
Dimitrov is one of the emerging talents in the men’s game and he underlined his growing reputation by overpowering top seed Wawrinka in just 61 minutes at the Wimbledon warm-up in west London.
The world No. 13 was to play his third ATP Tour final this season yesterday against Spanish 10th seed Lopez, who defeated Czech veteran Radek Stepanek 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 in the other semi-final.
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It is tough to define the word ‘breakthrough,’” Dimitrov said. “Of course, you would want to be more consistent. I think that’s more my word for it. Sometimes people make a big deal out of the breakthrough. To me, it’s just a stage that you’ve got to go through.”
Dimitrov is already the youngest player in the world top 20, having broken into the upper echelons with a run to the Australian Open quarter-finals before winning titles in Acapulco and Bucharest.
One of his few low moments this year came last month when he was dumped out of the French Open first round by Ivo Karlovic.
Playing with more freedom at Queen’s, Dimitrov has raced through the draw, adding an admiring Wawrinka to a list of scalps that includes Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych this year.
The Bulgarian, who has been supported by girlfriend and French Open champion Maria Sharapova last week, took just five games to became the first player in the tournament to break Wawrinka’s serve and added another break for good measure to clinch the first set.
There was no let-up from Dimitrov in the second set and Wawrinka, who smashed his racquet in frustration at one point, conceded the decisive break when his forehand missed by the narrowest of margins to surrender a 4-3 lead.
In the second last-four clash, world No. 29 Lopez followed up his surprise last-eight win over world No. 6 Tomas Berdych with a victory over the week’s other giant-killer.
Stepanek, 35, had defeated reigning Wimbledon and Queen’s champion Andy Murray in the third round and seventh-seed Kevin Anderson in the quarter-finals.
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