NEW YORK CITY -- Grigor Dimitrov looks relaxed.
It's the Thursday before the US Open is set to begin and not even 96 hours since he won the biggest title of his career at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. He's sitting on a rectangular, leather couch on the 16th floor of a modern Midtown Manhattan hotel, clad in a throwback Nike T-shirt and fitted black sweatpants.
He is explaining the mechanisms behind Wilson's newest initiative: personalized rackets. He talks about an inspiring trip to the company's Chicago factory and trading text messages with a racket designer named Ron.
"I just like creating stuff," the Bulgarian says, flashing that toothy grin that has helped make him one of the most marketable men in tennis. "I'm not this mainstream guy that follows trends. I would rather start something and make something different. Even if I fail, I know that I am trying, and I want to do it again and again. That provokes me to be better."
At this point, Grigor Dimitrov isn't even talking about his tennis.
THE WEEKEND PRIOR, Dimitrov took a step that many in tennis thought he would take a long time ago: He won a Masters 1000 title. It was after the final that he had the following exchange with a reporter.
Reporter: "There was a lot of expectations thrust upon you earlier in your career."
Dimitrov: "You think?"
The room burst with laughter, including Dimitrov, with that smile again.
He has been men's tennis' next big thing for close to five years now. Some call him "Baby Fed" because of a game that resembles Roger Federer's, with an explosive serve and forehand and a smooth, whipping, one-handed backhand that is as beautiful as it is deadly.
But after Dimitrov beat defending champion Andy Murray in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2014 to make his first Grand Slam semifinal, things didn't progress the way he had hoped.
There were injuries and frustrations, a series of coaches and an inability to produce at the high level on a consistent basis, a feat that tennis' "Big Four" has made look relatively easy.
At one point -- at a tournament in Istanbul last year -- Dimitrov got so frustrated with himself that he went about breaking three of his Wilson rackets. He was defaulted. It was the tournament's championship match.
"I let my family down," he said in an awkward on-court ceremony speech. "I let my fans down."
Dimitrov, now 26, has seemed to find a new level of himself in 2017. He won his first tournament of the year in Brisbane and made a second Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open, losing to Rafael Nadal in five gripping sets. He credited his offseason training block and a still-fresh relationship with coach Dani Vallverdu, a former adviser of Murray's.
Still, his year ebbed and flowed. That is, until Cincy, right before the US Open.
IN THE INSIDE of the neck of Dimitrov's racket, there is a quote: "Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended." It is written in flowing gold script opposite his name, and when asked about it, he talks about the book in which he read it, "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari," and how the quote has stuck with him.
Dimitrov is perhaps the prime example of a player in this sport who has been forced to be patient when it comes to his dreams -- or at least what one might perceive them to be, such as winning a Grand Slam and becoming No. 1 in the world. The quote can be taken as acutely self-aware.
When he won in Cincinnati, Dimitrov wouldn't be goaded into the line of questioning about what that title meant for the US Open, in which he's the No. 7 seed, and it was the same case during the sit-down chat in New York. He talked in broad strokes about human energy and momentum of the moment, instead of trophy lifts and specific round-by-round results.
"It doesn't change my expectations. I don't think of it that way," he says, taking a gulp of water from a hotel glass. "I don't go into a tournament hoping to win it. Coming to the Open, the most important thing for me is to stay grounded and keep my head down and do what I'm doing right now. It's so hard as a player."
DIMITROV'S PERSONALIZED racket has camouflage siding and is red matte in color, inspired by one of the cars that he owns. ("I love cars. I'm a car guy.") He played with the racket in D.C. and Montreal this summer but won't use the custom stick on a consistent basis until the beginning of 2018.
"I always say, 'In order to be irreplaceable, you need to be different,'" he says. "We started this [custom racket] process a couple of years ago. I wanted to try something that was out there and that no one else was doing. As a player, I know what I like to stand out."
While his racket will help him do so in 2018, Dimitrov's tennis might help even more in the coming weeks in New York. It's all part of a process that -- he hopes -- is just taking a little longer than he (or anyone else, for that matter) thought it would.
"I'm excited to try new things on the court -- strategy, ideas. I've always been like this," he says. "People close to me know that I try to find inspiration in anything that I do. That's what makes things more special. That's what drives all those ideas. I've found a good balance for mine."
When the conversation turns to the transition from Cincy to New York, Dimitrov speaks in detail for more than three minutes.
"I'm going to be on everybody's radar. Whoever I'm playing, he's going to want to beat me," he says. "I get that. At the same time, I know I have to do what I have to do and take it one match at a time. Hopefully it turns out to be one of those times when things are flowing with you. I think everything is possible."
Everything, it seems, and anything.