No time for talk: Thiem plays his way into French Open quarterfinals

Two days after running into some unexpected press-room controversy, Dominic Thiem made sure it was his tennis doing the talking.

Thiem, who had battle through a trio of tough four-setters in week one of the French Open, took his level to greater heights and crushed an in-form Gael Monfils 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 on Monday afternoon. The world No. 4 needed only one hour and 48 minutes to book a fourth consecutive trip to the Roland Garros quarterfinals.

While dropping serve only once, Thiem almost doubled his unforced-error count (14) with winners (27).

“It was a really good match,” the 25-year-old Austrian assured. “My best match so far in this tournament. And I have to be honest, he helped me a little bit because he had a really bad start into the match. Of course, the life on court is way easier if you’re up 5-2 double-break after only 20 minutes . That really helped me.

“After that I stayed solid. It was the first match for me at this tournament where it didn’t have any up-and-downs. It was really solid. I’m very happy.”

Thiem also must have been happy that this press conference proceeded without incident.

That was hardly the case on Saturday, when Thiem began his presser in the main interview room at 8:20 p.m. following his win over Pablo Cuevas. Serena Williams, whose loss to Sofia Kenin concluded at 8:17, stormed straight to the media center and was eager to get her own interview out of the way. To quickly recap a well-documented story, it was Thiem who had to get out of the way–moved to room 2 to make room for Serena.

“I don’t know who’s fault it was exactly,” the 2018 runner-up, who had been critical of Serena’s actions, said following his rout of Monfils. “I don’t know if it was her mistake or if it was only the mistake of the officials, but I don’t know if she saw me or if she saw that somebody’s in the room. So if she would have seen me, then it would be nicer from her to wait…. It was just a very, very strange thing. I mean, it never happened to me before. I’m easygoing.

“It was strange the first few minutes, but I have forgotten it now. That’s it for me…. It’s also understandable, in a sort of way. She lost and everything. So I think it was a little bit mistake of her, mistake of the officials, but as I said, it’s forgotten. It was a funny thing, strange thing, which made a big round in all the social networks. But…well…now I don’t put any attention on it anymore.”

Thiem was then asked if he got fined for either declining to finish the rest of his press conference in room 2 or for leaving the grounds prior to giving TV interviews.

“I’m the only one who didn’t do any mistakes there,” he insisted, “so why I should get fined? No, I was only one who was not doing mistakes. No, I didn’t get fined.”

And one other thing’s for sure, too: Thiem on Monday also didn’t make any mistakes on the court.