On days like this it seems Novak Djokovic is as close to unbeatable as it comes. The Serb’s 6-3, 6-4 victory over Dominic Thiem reads much more straightforward than it actually was and displayed probably the best tennis of the entire week in Miami.
Much of that goes down to Dominic Thiem. Experts tend to get carried away when a new player arrives on the scene but I don’t believe it’s too farfetched to claim that the Austrian has multiple Grand Slam titles awaiting in his career if nothing dramatic happens. Thiem is also a breath of fresh air amongst the big-serving, flat-hitting, double-handed backhand players that are churning out of the junior system and pushed Djokovic as far as anyone really has in 2016 when it came to exchanges from the back.
The world number one also helped his opponent’s cause by notching up a surprising total of 9 double faults and only 6 winners, as opposed to his 34 unforced errors, although these stats once again conceal the standard of the tennis that was played between Thiem and Djokovic. Stats are just numbers but there is one which does reveal why Djokovic booked his place in the quarter finals and Thiem didn’t and it’s the fact that the Austrian only converted 1/15 break points, and on the one occasion he did, he gave handed the break right back to the Serb.
The final game of the match took over ten minutes and included a handful of those break point opportunities for Thiem but Djokovic is like no one else out there and answered the Austrian’s huge hitting with some deep shots of his own when it mattered, and that’s precisely what makes a champion: stepping up to the plate when it is needed. The Serbian navigated through another tough encounter and now faces Tomas Berdych in the quarter finals. Beating Djokovic seems like the impossible task but, for brief spells, Dominic Thiem made the rest of the field believe there is a way of inflicting damage on this seamingly perfect tennis machine.
