It will be an all-nice guy showdown–and an extremely intriguing one, at that–when Dominic Thiem takes on Juan Martin Del Potro during fourth-round U.S. Open action on Labor Day. A spot in the quarterfinals, likely against Stan Wawrinka, is at stake.
Dominic Thiem and Juan Martin Del Potro will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers when they battle for a spot in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Monday. Their only previous meeting came earlier this season on the clay courts of Madrid, where Del Potro’s comeback from another wrist surgery reached new heights in the form of a 7-6(5), 6-3 victory.
Fast forward four months and that result pales in comparison to what Del Potro has delivered of late. The Argentine’s summer features a Wimbledon upset of Stan Wawrinka and, much more impressively, defeats of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal en route to the silver medal at the Rio Olympics. It has only been full steam ahead for Del Potro in Flushing Meadows, with straight-set routs of Diego Schwartzman, Steve Johnson, and David Ferrer.
“I’m so glad to be in the second week [of a] Grand Slam after three or four years,” the 2009 champion assured. “That’s means a lot of good things to myself. Of course, I’m looking forward to keep winning. But my next opponent will be really difficult.”
His next opponent, in fact, has been one of the best players on tour this year. Winning so many matches in the first half of 2016 ended up costing Thiem at Wimbledon and throughout the early stages of this hard-court summer, but he appears to be getting back in gear. The 23-year-old Austrian, who celebrated his birthday on Saturday, needed five sets to survive his opener against John Millman before making mostly routine work of Ricardas Berankis and and Pablo Carreno Busta.
Each of those three aforementioned opponents are baseline grinders who are content to play defense. With Del Potro on the other side of the net, though, Thiem will not be able to dictate play from start to finish. If his tendency to play too far behind the baseline reappears, he will get pushed around by an onslaught of Del Potro forehands.
Thiem is an obvious favorite on paper, but based on current form and the previous contest between these two competitors, he’s the underdog.
Pick: Del Potro in 4
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