Arguably the toughest tennis in tennis–going up against Rafael Nadal on clay–may have been exactly the wakeup call Dominic Thiem needed in order to get himself in gear this season.
Thiem had been a solid 22-6 even before arriving at the Mutua Madrid Open, but he suffered upset losses at big events to Tennys Sandgren (Australian Open), Fernando Verdasco (Rio de Janeiro), and Stefanos Tsitsipas (Barcelona). The seventh-ranked Austrian just barely managed to avoided upsets at the hands of Federico Delbonis and Borna Coric earlier this week, and with another lease on life he has soared to new heights. Thiem stunned Rafael Nadal 7-5, 6-3 on Friday and then erased Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinals.
Up next for the 24-year-old is Sunday’s final against Alexander Zverev, who trails the head-to-head series 4-1. Thiem won all three of their previous clay-court encounters in the the spring of 2016–in Munich, Nice, and at the French Open. Zverev’s lone victory came later that season on the hard courts of Beijing, while Thiem added another win to his total against the German via a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 decision indoors in Rotterdam last year. None of their previous showdowns has ended in straight sets.
Straight-set affairs are exactly what Zverev has enjoyed so far in Madrid. In fact, nobody has even pushed him to a single tiebreaker. The No. 2 seed booked his spot in his fourth career Masters 1000 finals with routine defeats of Evgeny Donskoy, Leonardo Mayer, John Isner, and Denis Shapovalov. Zverev, the 2017 Rome and Montreal champion, finished runner-up to Isner in Miami as part of his current 25-7 record this season.
“I’ve been in this moment before,” the 21-year-old noted. “I’m just happy to be in the final and play for another Masters title.”
Thiem finds himself in a second straight Madrid final, and this time Nadal is no longer standing in his way. Zverev is no slouch on this surface, but he also isn’t Nadal. And Thiem’s recent stunner against the Spaniard appears to have catapulted him to a new level–or, to put it more accurately, back to his old level. Madrid’s fifth seed had been a hopeless 0-6 lifetime in the head-to-head series with Anderson before trouncing the South African on Saturday.
“It gave me a huge boost of confidence,” Thiem said of his victory over Nadal. “That’s for sure.”
Pick: Thiem in 3
[polldaddy poll=10003033]
Leave a Reply