Thiem turns hard-court game around at U.S. Open to earn another shot at Nadal

The quarterfinal at the top of the U.S. Open draw was supposed to be a rematch of the last year’s final. Instead, it will be a rematch of the 2018 French Open final.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal took care of his business on Sunday afternoon in Flushing Meadows, but 2017 U.S. Open runner-up Kevin Anderson got bounced by Dominic Thiem. In what Thiem told the crowd was “one of my best matches ever,” the Austrian upset Anderson 7-5, 6-2, 7-6(2) after two hours and 37 minutes.

It was perhaps his absolute best match ever on a hard court, a surface on which he had previously been 0-6 lifetime against the 6’8” South African. Thiem, who had won just a single hard-court match since the first week of the season before he arrived in New York, won an awesome 41 of 45 first-serve points on Sunday and did not face a single break point. Anderson’s winners-to-errors ratio (40 to 27) was good, but Thiem’s was nothing short of incredible: 42 to 13 to be exact.

“I definitely felt he played a great match,” Anderson said of the world No. 9. “He made life pretty difficult for me. I thought he defended amazingly. There were pockets (during the match) where he had some unbelievable passing shots. I think overall I didn’t feel like I played poorly today. I think I did quite a few things well. Hat off to him. I thought he really stepped up.”

“First of all, I served really, really well today,” Thiem commented. “Not the best percentage, but I almost [won] every point [on my first serve]. I didn’t face one break point and I didn’t feel so much pressure on service games.

“So it was a little bit easier to play the return games. I could change my return position, and this helped me a lot. And also the court, I think, made a big difference. It’s a huge court. I could go very far back like I do on clay usually.”

Up next for the ninth seed is Rafael Nadal, for whom a hard court was much different than clay in his head-to-head history with Nikoloz Basiliashvili. Nadal had trounced the Georgian 6-0, 6-1, 6-0 at last season’s French Open, but this time around Basilashvili put up a commendable fight before going down 6-3, 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-4 in three hours and 19 minutes.

Now it will be Nadal vs. Thiem for the 11th time, with the world No. 1 leading 7-3 following his 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 triumph at Roland Garros.

“He’s a fantastic player,” Nadal assured. “He’s a very powerful player. He’s a great guy; very good relationship with him. Happy for him that he’s in quarterfinals here. Last year he lost a very tough match against (Juan Martin) Del Potro here. Yeah, in some way he deserve to be where he is. Gonna be a tough one.”

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