made an early exit in his first Challenger after a two-week break but bounced back a week later, beating top 100 player Lukáš Lacko and world No. 32 Michaël Llodra on the way to the final of the Open d'Orléans. In the final, Dimitrov lost to Nicolas Mahut in a third set tiebreak. After two disappointing Challenger tournaments in Germany, in which Dimitrov suffered first round exits, he reached the semifinals of IPP Open, his last tournament of the year. There he played Lithuanian youngster Ričardas Berankis. After the loss of a tight first set in a tiebreak, Dimitrov dominated the second set but was dominated in turn by Berankis in a third set loss. In an off-court incident after the match, Dimitrov pushed the chair umpire with both hands and swore at him because he felt he was treated unfairly after some close calls in the first set tiebreak. Dimitrov was fined €2,000. By reaching the semifinals in Helsinki, Dimitrov reached his best ever ATP World ranking of No. 106. 2011: Top 100 debut His first tournament of the year was the Australian Open where he advanced through the qualifying rounds with the loss of just one set. He defeated world No. 38, Andrey Golubev, to advance for the first time to the second round of a Grand Slam tournament where he lost to 19th seed Stanislas Wawrinka. Nonetheless, Dimitrov achieved his top ever ATP ranking ending January at World No. 85. Thus, he became the top ranked Bulgarian male tennis player of all time. Dimitrov then qualified for the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament but lost to eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the first round in two sets. He then lost in the first rounds of the Open 13 and Dubai Tennis Championships to Dmitry Tursunov and Richard Gasquet respectively. Dimitrov then won the Challenger DCNS de Cherbourg defeating defending champion and number two seed Nicolas Mahut in the final. He then qualified for the Sony Ericsson Open losing to Sergiy Stakhovsky. Dimitrov became the first Bulgarian man ever to be seeded at an ATP World Tour tournament being seeded eighth at the U.S. Clay Court Championships but lost in the second round to Teymuraz Gabashvili. At the Barcelona Open Banco Sabadell, he lost in the first round to Juan Mónaco. He reached his first quarterfinal in an ATP tournament at the BMW Open after defeating Marcos Baghdatis