Either Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer will be eliminated from the Nitto ATP Finals during round-robin competition.
Normally that would be the big story from London, but for now the story is Dominic Thiem.
Thiem turned in a brilliant performance on Tuesday night, upsetting Djokovic 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-6(5) to send the world No. 2 into a surprising winner-advance-loser-go-home showdown against Federer. The Austrian fired 51 winners–32 off the forehand side–to prevail in two hours and 47 minutes and book a semifinal spot inside the O2 Arena for the first time in his career.
Thiem’s stunning display left Djokovic borderline dumbfounded, but certainly not short of praise.
“I thought he deserved to win,” the Serb said. “He just played very courageous tennis and just smacking the ball. He went for broke. I mean, the entire match he played same way he played the last point. I have to put my hat down and congratulate him, because he just played a great match….
I don’t think I have experienced too many matches like this where my opponent just goes for every single shot. I mean, he was unbelievable. In some stages it was just incredible that he was just literally smacking the ball as hard as he can and he was going in. His level was super high. This today was unbelievable. As I said, he was taking every opportunity to smack the ball as hard as he can….
It was amazing. I have played him before, I know his game, but what he did tonight was just out of ordinary. I know that he can play in a high level, but tonight was just phenomenal.”
That’s not to say it was perfect. Thiem committed 44 unforced errors, by no means an alarming number given his incredibly aggressive tactics while facing a defender of Djokovic’s caliber. What almost cost the underdog more than the errors was twice giving back a break in the third set, including at 6-5.
Having failed to serve out the match, Thiem quickly fell behind 4-1 in the tiebreaker. But an overhead winner off the baseline for 2-4 kept the 26-year-old alive and began a string of five consecutive points won en route to a 6-4 lead. Djokovic fought off the first match point on his opponent’s serve before Thiem converted his second chance by inducing a forehand error in the net at the end of of an extended rally.
“Probably it was maybe the best match I ever played,” Thiem commented. “It was a real classic; (an) epic match which will happen from time to time at these big tournaments. It had everything what a match like this needs. He was up. I was up. He was playing amazing points. Me, I was playing amazing points. And then I think the match deserved an end in the third-set tiebreak. Well, there it’s, I think, if we are playing two hours 45, two top 10 players, it’s only about luck, and it was a little bit more on my side today. But I’m really happy and proud, because as I said before it was probably the best match I ever played.
“I knew that I had to play like this to beat him. Against everybody who qualified for this tournament here, there is a special effort necessary to win. I did it against Roger (on Sunday), and I did it also today. Probably Novak is the best player in the world right now, so I had to do something outstanding, something unusual, and that’s what I was hitting really, really hard. Well, 51 winners against him is a great number.”
With wins over the two all-time greats, Thiem has mathematically clinched victory in Group B. Both Djokovic and Federer have 1-1 records and will go head-to-head on Thursday for a place in the semifinals. Matteo Berrettini has been eliminated following losses to Djokovic and Federer.
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congrats to Thiem
Indeed, congrats to Thiem. Quite a match, it was.
That’s the best I can do at the moment. I’ll be happier for Thiem later on.
Happy for Rafa, sad for you, RC. It was an epic match. Djoko tried his beat but Thiem has been absolutely on fire this week! He wasn’t kidding around when he said in his first presser that he wanted to do well at the WTF this year! (Hope this guy doesn’t show up at RG next year! 2021, maybe.)
lol, Ramara about Thiem. Yes and he has to feel the heat of the younger guys coming up like, Shapo and FAA…maybe even Sinner and Alex De Minaur. Right now it should be actually Thiem’s time to shine. If Nole and Rafa are going to make their moves on assaulting Fed’s GS record, it’s gotta be now. Rafa should win this ATP Final – it’s getting down to a last chance situation. Maybe not, but it feels like it. Big 3 time is running out. If Rafa can win another RG or AO in 2020, that would be good. But I can’t really see Nole winning another GS. Those days of his ability to recover may well be over. I’m sounding depressed but I’m really not. It’s a natural progression finally going on in tennis. I really am happy and ready for the changing of the guard. We have had an excess of riches having Fedal and Nole.
Thanks for caring 😀
Elizabeth- are you being serious when you say, “I really can’t see Nole winning another GS.”?? What would make you think that the guy who has won 4 of the last 6 major titles could possibly not win even one single major ever again? The guy is 32, not 40… He hasn’t lost to Federer or Rafa at a major in 5 years! Outside of RG, who will be more favored over him to win all 3 of the other grand slam tournaments? Your comment just makes no sense to me. I understand that he had a slight setback at the US Open with his injury, but he had a much more serious injury issue between 2016 and 2018, and he immediately won 3 straight GS titles upon return. Why shouldn’t we expect him to return refreshed and ready to dominate everyone again in 2020? Again, he is 32. That’s obviously on the older side, but not nearly too old to still dominate the majors. If anything, he may just need to lighten his load more. Aren’t you a diehard Novak fan haha? I’m so confused…
I keep thinking how fascinating it is that Federer obviously would kill to win this tournament for a 7th time, but that he also knows that if he wins, Rafa will equal his amount of Year-End #1’s. Additionally, also knows that if he manages to beat Novak, he will have prevented Novak from potentially getting a 6th Year-End #1! This is all amazing to me.
I also think it’s funny that Rafa fans will all be rooting so hard for a Federer win! These guys are all massive competitors who want nothing but to win, so Federer will obviously want to win this match and the tournament. But there is no way that this stuff isn’t at least in the back of his mind.
I know that a lot peeps on here don’t feel the same, but I actually think it would be cool if all 3 of them got to 5 year-end #1’s, and it STAYED that way!
Yeah best case is roger bumps nole out and faces someone other than Rafa in the semis and gets bumped out and rafa wins the final and also year end no 1..
But as rafa says in tennis there are no ifs😅
Hey, Zverev can clearly be as deadly to Rafa indoors as Fed or Novak right now. Zverev has always had the weapons to overwhelm Rafa on a quicker/lower bouncing court- he’s just been too much of a mental midget and is so inconsistent. Zverev is capable of winning any best-of-3 tournament in existence, no matter who is in the field. However, I still would never bet a single penny on him doing it! 😂
Zverev was mostly terrible v Tsitsipas today.🤭
@Kevin,
I’ll sign for that! I’d love for the Big 3 all to end up with the same # of slams too! I’ve felt for some time that what we have is one 3-headed GOAT, each head with its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses.
Nole looked so very tired and after his defeat to Thiem. It was hard fought and I just see Nole as needing more rest. Look how tired he was at US Open and he really didn’t recover well until Paris this year. Of course I wrote the above thinking and remembering how mentally and physically vulnerable I have seen him over the years. If he’s still enjoying himself, fine.
But it’s a stressful game being constantly in the shadow of Rafa and Roger and is constantly looking at the back of them. And then he has to steel himself for the likes of Thiem, Tsitsipas, and Medvedev. He has to take being disliked and underrated by the crowds as he is here in London and other GS venues. It’s a battle I don’t know how long he can take it. He has accomplished so much – winning the Djoko Slam, which isn’t acknowledged because it’s not a calendar GS – all these frustrations to accept and get through. He is okay for a while but it’s getting tougher to sustain his level and more crowded with fantastic competition in addition to Fedal!
It’s my view. He seems like a mentally and physically tired 32. But that’s mostly a picture of my heart going out to him: see grumpy frog gravatar, that’s me.
I don’t have a great outlook right now. It will help if he beats Federer. LOL, but for him, he will be more hated. I say just do it if at all possible, Idemooo! And for sure it’s still painful to me that he lost to Thiem in a RR match on indoor HC!
Thiem looked more mighty than Stan Wawrinka at his best the other day. Last thing I want to do is get high hopes and have them squashed. Time to chill out.
I’ll be fine as ever with whatever the outcome. I will see and feel the joy if Rafa can win this WTF! But I’m not sure that will happen either! hahahhaha, almost as likely right now if Thiem won the whole thing or Tsitsipas, if you look at the odds. Let the chips fall where they will.
My post above is in reply to Kevin.
fantastic win for Thiem….very aggressive, very confident, free swinging….wow!!!