Dimitrov takes down Hurkacz for the Monte-Carlo Masters semifinals

Hubert Hurkacz served for the match but Grigor Dimitrov won the match 6-4 3-6 7-6(2) to move on to the semifinals.

Grigor Dimitrov wowed the tennis world with a strong display in the 3rd round against Casper Ruud taking out the in-form Norwegian on the surface which Ruud prefers more than Dimitrov does. It was a great match by the Bulgarian who has had success here in the past and that success continued against Hurkacz early. Naturally more comfortable on the red dirt, Dimitrov jumped out to an early 3-1 lead.

The Bulgarian was very comfortable on the court playing his tennis and moving Hurkacz around. The Polish player was not in a very good rhythm on return as Dimitrov dropped only three points on his serve in the first set. The 2nd set was quite different as Hurkacz was better. He opted to play more aggressively because he needed to.

It worked as Dimitrov was caught off guard and his serve kind of let him down. Hurkacz did most of his damage on Dimitrov's 2nd serve as the Bulgarian was superb on his serve. He only hit it 46 % of the time and that was not good enough. Hurkacz sealed the 2nd with 6-3 after some stellar tennis. That momentum carried over into the 3r as Hurkacz broke his opponent early for the 1-0 lead.

Somewhat of a sloppy game allowed Dimitrov to break back and after we saw pretty strong play by both. Nobody was able to create a breakthrough until 4-4 when Hurkacz broke for the 5-4 lead. He failed to serve out the match and Dimitrov got his first match points at 6-5 but failed to convert them. The tiebreak settled it with