Grigor Dimitrov continues to make his slow but steady climb towards the top of the tennis world. It feels like every time we turn around he has taken another step forward in both his level of play and his achievements. Dimitrov won his first-ever ATP 500 title in Acapulco earlier this year and won his first career clay title in Bucharest this past week.

Dimitrov did not have the toughest of draws in this tournament, although Lukas Rosol in the final is no pushover. But that cannot let us lose sight of what this tournament showed in his development as a player.

Last year, Dimitrov played very well during the clay season. He pushed Nadal to the limit and came close to upsetting him in Monte Carlo, and he did upset Djokovic in Madrid. His losses on clay did not come from an inability to string good matches together. Instead, they came from facing tougher competition too often.

This year, though, Dimitrov took a different tactic. Rather than playing Barcelona like last year, where he did not play well in a first-match loss to Tommy Robredo, he played in the smaller Bucharest tournament. He was the No. 1 seed and took full advantage of this opportunity to gain confidence and match play moving forward. Also, the 250 points Dimitrov earned for a title in Bucharest is more than he would have received at Barcelona for any result less than a runner-up.

This shows a maturity and canniness in his scheduling that is important moving forward. At some point Dimitrov will have to take on the top players consistently in the biggest tournaments. But he already does that one or two times each tournament. This year, he took a break between those elite events to earn some points, money, and confidence. Four matches in Bucharest against top-100 players (or three, since Monfils was hurt) probably got him more in form than a likely loss to a top-five player would.

Dimitrov is now at a career-high ranking of No. 14. His level of play is only getting better, and he is dangerous to everyone in the world from the baseline. His game is moving from hard courts to clay without a hitch, and he will be very dangerous to everyone the rest of this season. We expected big things from the Bulgarian a few years too early. Now, step by step, Dimitrov is delivering. There is no reason that he can’t be a Masters 1000 or even a Grand Slam champion someday. Whether that day is this year or three years from now remains to be seen, but it is coming.

To follow up with another young star whom we discussed last week, meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios still has yet to lose on clay this year. He won the Savannah Challenger to push his winning streak on clay to 10 matches and move to a career-high ranking of world No. 152. Kyrgios withdrew from Tallahassee this week because he had played 10 matches in the past two weeks and would probably like some rest before traveling to Europe for the Helibronn Challenger and Roland Garros qualifying. It seems unlikely, but it would be very interesting if his success on clay Challengers so far could translate into a wildcard for the Masters 1000 event in Rome.