JUST NOW :Grigor Dimitrov has won 40 or more matches in back-to-back years for the first time in his career

Grigor Dimitrov went up against one of this year’s biggest giant-killers in Shanghai on Tuesday, facing Alexei Popyrin—who had won his last four matches against Top 10 players, including a win over Dimitrov himself en route to the Masters 1000 title in Canada two months ago.

But Dimitrov was ready for revenge, and after sneaking out a nail-biting first set in a tie-break, the former No. 3 cruised to victory, eventually closing the No. 23-ranked Australian out, 7-6 (5), 6-2.

It was a milestone win for Dimitrov, too—his 40th win of the year.

And with that, a career first: the 33-year-old Bulgarian has now won 40 or more matches in back-to-back years for the first time in his career.

It’s the fourth year in his career that he’s hit that number, after 2014 (50 wins), 2017 (49 wins), 2023 (41 wins) and now 2024 (40 wins so far).

DIMITROV WIN-LOSS RECORDS BY YEAR (tour-level):
2008: 0-1
2009: 4-6
2010: 3-2
2011: 18-25
2012: 24-19
2013: 37-23
2014: 50-18
2015: 33-22
2016: 39-26
2017: 49-19
2018: 25-19
2019: 22-21
2020: 18-11
2021: 24-18
2022: 26-22
2023: 41-21
2024: 40-14 (

The first set remained entirely on serve on Tuesday, though Dimitrov was in trouble a few times—he found himself serving at 0-30 in both his 3-all and 4-all service games—but he held both times, closed out the set in a tie-break after 55 minutes and then stormed out to a 4-0, double-break lead, even winning 14 points in a row at one point.

The two held from there until it was all over.

Dimitrov finished the match with strong numbers—18 winners to 14 unforced errors, including seven aces to just one double fault.

Awaiting the No. 9 seed in the fourth round will be another giant-killer in unseeded Czech

teenager Jakub Mensik, whose path to the round of 16 included a second-round upset over the No. 6 seed, Andrey Rublev.

And Mensik actually won the pair’s only previous meeting, a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-3 victory on clay in Madrid earlier this year