Grigor Dimitrov reached the Wimbledon fourth round on Saturday evening, beating 2021 finalist Matteo Berrettini 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3 in three hours and 32 minutes on Centre Court.
It was the Bulgarian’s first match on the sport’s most famous stage since last year’s fourth round, when a pectoral injury forced him to retire against Jannik Sinner despite leading by two sets. This time he finished the job, sealing a deciding set after Berrettini had battled back from two sets down.
The win caps a long recovery. Dimitrov did not return to the tour until late October in Paris and withdrew before his second-round match there. By mid-June this year, he had managed only two tour-level victories. He rebuilt momentum with two wins at a Challenger event in Dublin and a quarter-final run at the ATP 250 in Mallorca. Entering Wimbledon as a wild card ranked No. 146 in the PIF ATP Rankings, he has now carried that form into the second week.
Dimitrov’s Performance Against Berrettini
Against Berrettini, Dimitrov surged ahead with assertive serving and clean baseline play to take a two-set lead. The Italian clawed back to force a fifth, but Dimitrov secured the lone break of the decider to advance. The result gives him a 2-1 edge in their head-to-head series.
Dimitrov will face fellow wild card Arthur Fery in the Round of 16. Fery reached the last 16 at a major for the first time by outlasting Zizou Bergs 2-6, 7-5, 2-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(10-5) in four hours and 39 minutes.
With both Fery and Dimitrov through, this marks only the fourth occasion that two wild cards have made the fourth round at a Grand Slam, and the first since Roland Garros in 2002, when Arnaud Di Pasquale and Paul-Henri Mathieu achieved the feat. As the tournament progresses, all eyes will be on Dimitrov to see if he can continue his strong performance and make a deep run at Wimbledon 2023.