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Maria S. Topalova

After ensuring Bulgaria’s victory over Greece in the game for the second Euro-African Group of the Davis Cup tournament, Grigor Dimitrov left the tournament in order to get ready for the next tournament, which will also be held on clay courts, but this time in Monte Carlo. Thus, the tournament on the courts in the Athens district of Ilioupolis regained its true nature – slow and provincial. Indeed, Grigor spared no efforts. The Greeks easily managed to score 40:0 in their favour, but then Grisho got activated and always or most often the games ended in favour of Bulgaria.

The Bulgarians made use of their psychological advantage which resulted from Grisho’s presence, and the Greeks never recovered from the shock caused by the fact that they had to play against the 15th best in the world.

The first match between Alexandros Yakoupovich and Dinko Halatchev fairly ended 2-0 sets for the Greek tennis player. According to the rules of the game, Yakoupovich had to compete with Grigor in the individual matches on Friday, but coach George Kalovelonis chose his son Marcos, explaining that the battle with Grigor was lost for the Greeks anyway. Then, in the doubles, the Greek coach again chose his son, who was not an equal partner of Yakoupovich and the Greeks lost the game quite miserably.

"I had to win in order to reduce the sense of loss at least to some extent and bring some joy to the people who have supported us during these three days. The end result was bitter. We could have achieved something better," commented Yakoupovich, who apparently criticised coach Kalovelonis.

In the second match of the day, Bulgarian Dimitar Kutrovski showed class and defeated Harris Kapoyanis by 2 sets to 1. Yakoupovich was the hero of the match for Greece, since he obtained the only victory for the Greeks. However, Grigor Dimitrov was not the hero for Bulgaria, but Kutrovski, since he recorded three victories on the courts at Ilioupolis. The first victory was against the most successful Greek tennis player, Thodoris Angelinos, and the second one was with Grigor Dimitrov against Yanoukovych and Kalovelonis. The third victory was against Kapoyanis.

Here is a moment from today’s wonderful match with Dimi:

Besides Bulgaria, there was yet another winner of the game in Ilioupolis - tennis as a sport.

The game and the audience were very sportsmanlike. There were many Bulgarians in the audience who supported the Bulgarian players in a very well-mannered way, and so did the hosts.

Follow Maria on Twitter @MariaSTopalova