Bulgaria's Dimitrov Ousted by Raonic at Stockholm Open

Bulgaria's star male tennis player Grigor Dimitrov pictured here at the ATP Challenger in DC. Photo by grigor-dimitrov.com

Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgaria's biggest male tennis hopeful, failed to advance to the semifinals at the Stockholm Open, as he was defeated 5-7, 4-6 by another up-and-comer, Milos Raonic.

Dimitrov managed to stay even for much of the first set, but he cracked with a poor service game at 5-5 and failed to recover for the rest of the match. The Canadian achieved 14 aces and hit 34 winners in 78 minutes.

Thus, the 20-year-old Dimitrov once again failed to become the first Bulgarian male player to have ever reached an ATP 250 semifinal.

"I took care of everything I needed to, hitting my serve and creating opportunities," Raonic, also 20, commented after the clash. "The job is to take care of serve and look for opportunities -- and I couldn't have taken care of serve any better," he added, as cited by TSN.

The 29th-ranked Canadian will play top-seeded Gael Monfils of France in Saturday's semifinal.

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