David Goffin was one point away from taking a two-set lead over Dominic Thiem in the French Open quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon. And the Belgian had complete control of the aforementioned point.
But Thiem somehow managed to survive a grueling exchange at 6-7 in the tiebreaker and that proved to be the decisive turning point of the match.
this is how close Dominic Thiem was to trailing David Goffin two sets to love pic.twitter.com/7hkUBWngLG
— The Grandstand (@TennGrand) June 2, 2016
The 22-year-old Austrian won the next two points to steal the second set and with momentum suddenly in hand, he was off to the races. Thiem eventually defeated Goffin 4-6, 7-6(7), 6-4, 6-1 to punch a ticket to a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time in his career. He will go up against world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Friday.
“Honestly in the second set, in the whole second set, I didn’t really think that I’m going to win this match, because he was just on top of me,” Thiem said of Goffin. “He was the better player the first two sets maybe, or until the tiebreak. I didn’t know what to do because he was returning well. He didn’t do any mistakes. Then I think the tiebreak was one of the highest level I was ever playing. Then things kind of turned around. But, yeah, I doubted when I would go 2-0 sets down that I would have won the match.”
“I don’t regret it,” Goffin added. “No. I came to the net. He defended well and he played a good shot afterwards. But I had an opportunity at that moment.”
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Epic turnaround by Thiem