The sorry plight of "Baby Feds"

Rambling blog I wrote about Dimitrov.
http://richard-mills-sports.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-sorry-plight-of-baby-feds.html
Thoughts?

Yah I mean it's the eternal sorry plight of being "bigged up". Kyrgios and tomic are having trouble, dimi is floundering.  Gasquet famously got in the front cover of a magazine at 9 and has always struggled with the limelight. Even murray has trouble with it.

Ah yes. What a fall from grace. Similar in a way to Bouchard on the ladies side.

I don't see Rasheed as a total failure with him. He got Dimitrov where he needed to be physically, but once he got there he needed someone else to keep him sharp from a technical perspective with his shotmaking.

His mindset is a mess as well as his game. In terms of who would take him on, can't see Cahill or Lendl taking that chance. Annacone would want a limited schedule. Not sure who would step up to the job.

When Roger Rasheed started working with Dimitrov he was ranked 28th in the world, had never won an ATP title, and never made it past 3rd round of a major and had a losing record at each of them. Since working with Rasheed he has won 4 ATP titles, including 2 500s, made the QF of the Australian Open, SF at Wimbledon, has a winning record at each of the majors and reached a career high ranking of 8 in the world – he is currently ranked 11.

Going from from 28 to 8 is a hell of a lot harder than going from 48 to 28, and going from 8 to being one of the 2-3 best players ON THE PLANET is an ever bigger leap. That leap requires a lot of components, and one of the components that was holding him back was his fitness: cramping in 3 set matches and getting silly little injuries here and there.

He is stronger and fitter now, and his improved results bear that out. And while there is more work to do on his game, which Rasheed may not have been the best person to address, I can think of nobody who could get him to where he needed to be physically quicker than Rasheed. In any case, to say that nothing was accomplished and that it was a waste of time is the kind of short sightedness that can ruin careers, and I’m just glad that you’re all on the outside looking in, rather than the other way around.

There could be many reasons why he changed coaches, but at the end of the day, what he really needs is to think for himself how he can improve his game, and implement tactical patterns that work consistently. But that’s been the same for every player in the world. Nadal wasn’t made in a day – he was on tour for 5 years before he won a major, the same for Federer. Djokovic did it a little earlier, but that was a fluke, and didn’t follow it up until he’d been on tour for 7 years.

I have no skin in the game – I don’t know Roger Rasheed, and I have no reason to defend him, but in my opinion talent and technique are 90% of tennis, and Dimitrov has more if it in his pinky finger than 99.9% of players have in their whole body, so I wouldn’t write him off, nor would I slough off the last 2 years of his accomplishments.

I think you have misconstrued my article.

What has he done since Wimby '14?
That was my point.

There is only one Baby Fed

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SgDncDs2h5o

The point from 0:38 is fun

LuvSports! wrote:I think you have misconstrued my article.

What has he done since Wimby '14?
That was my point.

MaSha...

HA, dirty LF.

Apparently not. I've heard she's a gentle (read nonexistent) lover.

kingraf wrote:Apparently not. I've heard she's a gentle (read nonexistent) lover.

Was Rasheed a better master?

Picked it. 
He's broken up with Sharapova apparently and now rumours he may get coached by Lendl. Nostradamus... :P

The Dimi and Shazza split:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3173342/Maria-Sharapova-split-fellow-tennis-star-boyfriend-Grigor-Dimitrov-nearly-three-years.html

May be Dimi will now emulate Rory McIlroy who went on a good run after the split with Caroline W.
Not sure these athlete-to-athlete relations work while both are still playing. Remember Julian Alonso, a promising Spanish player? He hardly won a match when dating Hingis.