(Too long, do not read)...
People like to clown Dimitrov for ‘only’ being insanely good and becoming the severaleth best in the world at what he does. His racquet roulette has hampered his career drastically, robbing him of consistency and making him more prone to shoulder trouble. Sure, the hitch in his service motion plays a part, and his brain plays a huge part, but the racquet roulette plays directly into the inability to trust oneself under pressure. The fact is he got on board with an experimental string pattern that worked for him in a small, thin frame but didn’t when expanded to a larger. He spent 2 years trying to find a balance and layup that could reliably put balls in play and finally went back to the 93in^2. He did great but again wore out his shoulder and maybe his legs trying to keep pace with bigger and stiffer frames. Rewatching his match with Tiafoe from last week, I can see the slight increase in easy pace right away. He doesn’t have to torque his body as much to produce what is now the standard (insanely high mph) rally pace of the tour. Once he adjusts to the new frame this should increase his consistency nontrivially. His backhand slice knifes more, floats less. He’s making errors still, including dreaded double faults, but his second serves also appear to have 5-10ish mph more on them. I have long been advocating he switch to a 16x20 97in^2 Yonex, but I have no money to put behind the legal contract stuff. Watching him start to come over returns with his backhand is inspiring and I honestly think he can reach maybe Top 5 with this frame. I think he could use this stick for the rest of his career. I say that as a person who has watched almost all of almost every match he has played in the last 4 years, watching how his game morphs with each variation in his stick. Sure, I’m nuts, but I think that after about 6 months of spotty results as he adjusts, and hopefully a long offseason to rest his body, next year he will be incrementally closer to the player all the pundits have been dreaming of for a decade. At the highest levels of the sport, incremental changes for the good are just about all you can make.
TL;DNR
EZ Ace Machine