As he continued to struggle, Dimitrov said at one point he even considered ending his season early. He had never advanced past the fourth round in New York, anyway, and there was no indication this year would be different.

“There were so many doubts that are coming into my head, thoughts of maybe potentially stopping the season and resting up a little bit and building up again,” he said. “After Atlanta, and over all in general, this season has been very, very hard. I just couldn’t find a good rhythm at all. I kept on struggling with the shoulder, kept struggling with small things on a daily basis, but I had to push through it.”

He added: “I could control only what I could, and so I kept on believing, believing, believing. In our sport, you can’t just let go. Once you do that, it becomes even harder. Even if I was dropping to 200 in the world, no ranking at all, if the will was still there, I’d know what I had to do. I’d know the way.”

Dimitrov, a 28-year-old from Bulgaria, had once been considered among the most promising prospects of his generation. Because of the similarity between his strokes and Federer’s, he was labeled Baby Federer, a nickname he quickly came to resent.

“Younger players coming up, I think they should never be compared to anybody,” Dimitrov said. “I think they should have more air to breathe, and a lot more time to find themselves first before anything else. I found that out the hard way.”