Dominic Thiem continued his impressive season with his second win in a month over Denis Istomin, 6-2, 7-5.
The two had met in the US Open second round, where Thiem had led by two sets when the Uzbek retired citing an injury. Yet there was little doubt of the victor in this match even early on. Thiem broke in each of Istomin’s opening service games to take a commanding double-break advantage in the first set. The key to the match was Istomin’s second serve, as Thiem won five from eight in that regard in the first set. Thiem himself looked dominant on serve winning well over half his points on both first and second serve.
Istomin at least managed to stay in touch for much of the second set, even forcing his only break point of the match. This was swiftly repelled by Thiem however. The reality of the match was that Istomin was constantly escaping, and his luck ran out in the penultimate game. A deuce game at five-all saw the young Austrian finally secure the decisive break, and he served out for the victory.
Thiem has very few points to defend in these closing stages of the season, having won just two matches in 2014 after the US Open. He did not play St Petersburg last year, and has a very real chance of returning to the Top 20 next week. He is currently ranked 21 with a career high ranking of 18. Top seed Tomas Berdych, who Thiem was seeded to meet in the semi-finals, crashed out to Simone Bolelli in the third round.
Thiem will now face Joao Sousa of Portugal, who defeated Bolelli in straight sets 7-6, 7-6. In a match with no break points, Sousa played the key points well enough to defeat his 63 ranked opponent. Sousa is defending finals points from Metz last year, where he was runner-up to David Goffin of Belgium. A win against Thiem will see him defend those points.
Meanwhile, Roberto Bautista-Agut also booked his place in the last four, with 6-2, 6-3 win over young frenchman Lucas Pouille. In their first ever career meeting, Pouille struggled to find consistent serving throughout, with woeful first set statistics. Bautista-Agut took full advantage, and broke four times across both sets in the very one-sided encounter.
Even more one-sided however, was the clash between Canadian Milos Raonic and former world number 5 Tommy Robredo. Raonic crushed the Spaniard 6-1, 6-2. This marked the third time this year that Raonic has beaten Robredo, and the second time in straight sets.
