The coach of Dominic Thiem is keeping coy about his chances at next week’s ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Gunter Bresnik, who has worked with the Austrian since he was 9-year-old, has said that there is ‘a lot of ifs’ concerning the Prospect of Thiem triumphing at the tournament. It is the third consecutive season that Thiem has qualified to play in London. The ATP Finals feature the eight highest ranked players in the world with a prize pool of $8 million. Thiem is yet to progress beyond the round-robin stages. Winning just one match in the group stages during 2016 and 2017.
Thiem has been placed in Group Lleyton Hewitt. Seeded sixth in the draw, he will play Kei Nishikori, Kevin Anderson and Roger Federer. Historically, he has scored wins over all three of those players. Defeating Anderson twice in 2018, Nishikori at this year’s French Open and Federer twice in 2016.
“Nishikori and Anderson are opponents, where Dominic can win, but also lose. I can throw a coin there.” Bresnik explained during an interview with TennisNet.
“It is important how well the players feel with the local conditions. There are so many ifs. The only ones who really make a strong impression there will be Federer and Djokovic. Otherwise, every match will be very open.”
Bresnik’s somewhat diplomatic perspective comes after what has been a mixed second half of the year for Thiem. After winning his 11th ATP title in St. Petersburg, the 25-year-old lost his opening match at the Shanghai Masters and was then crushed 6-3, 6-1, by Nishikori in his home country at the Vienna Open.
“Dominic played really bad in Vienna and lost,” his coach admitted.
In his penultimate tournament of 2018, Thiem progressed to the semi-finals of the Paris Masters. His best ever performance at the event. His title hopes were dashed by eventual champion Karen Khachanov, who prevailed in straight sets. At the time some speculated that fatigued contributed towards the outcome of that match, but this has been dismissed by his coach. Heading into London, Thiem has already played 71 matches on the tour.
“If I’m a top athlete and in the physical condition of Dominic, then I’m never really tired of best-of-three matches.” Said Bresnik.
“It was just a really bad match. Dominic was really scared after the defeat. Something like this has rarely happened this year. He does not want to accept such matches, even though Khachanov played well.”
Thiem will travel to London on Thursday. He will play his first match at the ATP Finals on Sunday afternoon against Anderson.
