''Tennis glamour couple Maria Sharapova and Grigor Dimitrov tell of their Brisbane love affair
In a sport where relationships between active players often crash on the rocks of two ambitious careers and two sets of priorities, Sharapova, the French Open champion, and Dimitrov, Bulgaria’s bustling world No.11, are both coming off excellent years.
For this year’s campaign, they showed their commitment by flying to Brisbane from the US on Christmas morning.
Sharapova cast off worries about a shoulder injury by making the Brisbane semi-finals, where she lost to Serena Williams in a gripping contest. After an Australian Open disappointment, she went on to win her second consecutive French Open.
Dimitrov started this year ranked No.24, but wins over Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray (twice) and Tomas Berdych took him briefly into the top 10 for the first time.
“I love the easy atmosphere of Brisbane, It’s summertime in Australia and everyone’s on a summer break and in a great mood and you see the summer dresses. I love that part about it. It’s very free-spirited. You can go to cafes, try to find something by the water, go to the zoo, so there’s a little bit of everything.''
“Pat Rafter Arena is very intimate. The fans were wonderful and the tournament organisation was great.’’
Sharapova says she feels blessed to have a boyfriend who understands how she needs space for her tennis.
''It’s a part of my life I like to keep to myself. It’s important to keep a part of you private and personal because so much of a professional athlete’s life is in the public eye,’’ she said.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a person and it’s nice to share each other’s company every day and forget about what we do, have other interests. If you are happy and that person brings you happiness, you have to cherish it as much as you can.’’ ended Sharapova
Brisbane is one of 11 tournaments which this year brought Sharapova and Dimitrov, almost four years her junior, to the same city in the same week.
Encouragingly for his Australian coach Roger Rasheed, Dimitrov reserved his best for major tournaments, ending Murray’s title defence at Wimbledon before losing a four-set semi-final to Novak Djokoivc.
Earlier at the Australian Open, the Bulgarian was too good for another big-hitting star, Canada’s Milos Raonic, who will make his Brisbane debut, before losing in the quarter-finals to Rafal Nadal in four sets.
“It’s going to be my third time (in Brisbane) and it was one of my first big breakthrough tournaments so I’m always excited to get out there,’’ said Dimitrov, who was the last year’s Brisbane International runner-up.
I enjoy the city quite a bit especially at that time of year when you have all the fireworks around and people gathering. It’s a great event to start the year with a lot of people coming to watch, the courts are great so it’s always positive coming out there. The crowd has always been a full house (at Rafter Arena), always been really supportive and they appreciate good tennis. I love that tournament and I definitely want to win it one day and why not next year? This tournament is certainly on my list.’’ ended Dimitrov
