Federer says goodbye to the US Open after falling against Dimitrov in the quarterfinals

Roger Federer fell on Tuesday before a confident and determined Grigor Dimitrov, who managed to move to the semifinals in a disputed five-game match that lasted more than 3 hours and ended in 3-6, 6-4, 3-6, 6- 4 and 6-2.

The world number 3 began strongly against Dimitrov, number 78 of the official classification, and in just six minutes he managed to sign up the first three sets.

Except for some parallel setback that exceeded Federer, Dimitrov was subdued in the first round by the dominance of the five-time US Open champion racket, which closed the first set with a blank game.

Already in the second, the Bulgarian, number 78 of the ATP, gained confidence and defended himself effectively from the uploads to Federer's network, throwing powerful balls that passed his opponent with determination and that led him to sign up two games of advantage and Finally get the second sleeve.

An extraordinary fact, since in the seven times Dimitrov has faced Federer before, the Bulgarian never managed to overcome him, and in fact he had only been able to snatch a set in two games played in Australia in 2016, both on the hard surface .

One of the examples of Dimitrov's good game that dislodged world number 3 was a 0-40 against him in the fifth game of the third set that the Bulgarian could recover by signing up five points in a row.

Although Federer took the third set comfortably, the Swiss passed the fourth sleeve running from one side of the track to the other, chasing the accurate open-angle shots that Dimitrov threw from the baseline.

Thus, the delivered New York public saw at the Arthur Ashe stadium a Federer who went up to the net as soon as he had the opportunity to attack his rival, especially in the last two sets, but what he earned with his courage lost him with his mistakes not forced, 61 in total, that made him lose the fourth sleeve.

It was at that time when the Swiss went to the bathroom and disappeared for several minutes, also running out of the time granted for medical assistance, while Dimitrov ran only from one side to the other of the track to prevent his muscles from cooling.

In the fifth set, Federer seemed to have lost his rhythm completely, and handed the last sleeve to the Bulgarian in just over half an hour.

Dimitrov, who will face in the semifinals the Russian Daniil Medvedev, number 5 in the world, is the player with the lowest ranking of the ATP to sneak into the semifinal of a Grand Slam from Rainer Schuettler in the Wimbledon of 2008.

"At the beginning I was a little nervous, trying to find my rhythm," Dimitrov said minutes after the match, which said his only goal was to "stay in the game."

He further stated that his tactic was to try to remain on the track "as long as possible", and admitted that Federer "towards the end was definitely not 100%."