In a meeting of Qatar ExxonMobil Open semi-finalists, Dominic Thiem got the better of Guido Pella 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to successfully launch his bid for a first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open on Tuesday. Thiem, appearing for the first time since withdrawing in Doha with a viral infection, booked his place in the second round for a third straight year. Having saved all six break points he faced in the two-hour, 16-minute encounter, Thiem will face Denis Kudla in the second round after the American defeated compatriot Steve Johnson 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-6(3), 6-2 Competing at his highest ever Grand Slam seeding of No. 5, Thiem found himself down break point in his opening service game, but would navigate...
Dominic Thiem introduces his best friend, Dennis Novak, who will play Grigor Dimitrov in the Australian Open first round on Monday after qualifying into the main draw.
In 2017, Dominic Thiem reached five semi-finals, all of them on clay. But less than a week into the 2018 season, the World No. 5 has already reached a hard-court semi-final. The top-seeded Thiem halted the run of #NextGenATP Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas on Thursday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha 7-5, 6-4 to advance to his first outdoor hard-court semi-final since February 2016 in Acapulco, where he won the ATP World Tour 500 title (d. Tomic). Thiem also advanced to the semi-finals of the indoor Moselle Open in Metz in September 2016. Thiem hit big all match and took time away from the 6'4” Tsitsipas, who reached his second ATP World Tour quarter-final by beating French veteran Richard Gasquet...
They changed sports and surfaces, switching from a football pitch to a tennis court. But on Wednesday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, the outcome was the same when Dominic Thiem and Aljaz Bedene faced off in the second round in Doha. As Thiem's football team did during the off-season, the Austrian outplayed the Slovenian, advancing to the quarter-finals of his first tournament of the 2018 season, 7-5, 6-4. Thiem had plenty of opportunities in the early-evening match, earning 15 break points, including 10 in the second set, against Bedene, who now plays for Slovenia after switching from Great Britain last month. But Thiem converted only three of those break-point opportunities. Still, he was pleased to improve to 2-0 in their...
The first time Dominic Thiem played in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in 2014, he was a 20-year-old qualifier who lost in the first round of the main draw against the No. 162 player in the ATP Rankings. Just four years later, the Austrian is a star on the ATP World Tour and he showed it in his 7-6(3), 6-3 victory over Evgeny Donskoy on Monday. The top seed, who is now ranked No. 5, won a stunning 92 per cent of his first-serve points and overcame a strong performance by the Russian in the opening set to earn his first triumph of the new campaign. “It was a good victory because [of a] tough opponent… after a pretty long period...
