Dominic Thiem says he hopes to get back on track at this week’s Doha Open after experiencing a bit of a roller-coaster start to the season.
The world No.4 is set to return to competition for the first time since his loss in the fourth round of the Australian Open to Grigor Dimitrov where he could only win eight games in the match. Prior to playing Dimitrov, he battled back from two sets down to defeat Nick Kyrgios. During his time in Melbourne Thiem experienced mixed results after also losing to Matteo Berrettini at the ATP Cup which took place a week before the start of the Grand Slam.
Reflecting on his start to 2021, Thiem describes his experience as ‘exhausting’ partly due to the quarantine process. Under government protocols players arriving in Australia had to quarantine for 14 days before they could play. He was one of a select few who spent his time in Brisbane instead of Melbourne.
“It took me a while to digest the whole thing. The whole trip was exhausting in Australia with quarantine. It was a very strange trip,” Newspaper Die Presse quoted Thiem as saying. “That makes the whole thing very difficult, of course. I left Australia with a really bad and also sad feeling because I lost in the fourth round.”
Last year Thiem broke new ground by winning the US Open in what was his first ever major title at the age of 27. Since then he hasn’t won another trophy but did reach the quarter-finals of the French Open and was runner-up at the ATP Finals in November. Whilst he has been ranked among the best in the world for a few years, the Austrian admits that he is still trying to cope with balancing the level of expectation he has.
“In every tournament I compete in, it is almost only the victory that counts,” he explains.
“I’m a bit different from the very young players who were used to being the favourite at every tournament from a very young age. I grew into this role more slowly.”
“I didn’t do that very well in Australia, but the next chance comes now (in Doha) and luckily comes almost every week in tennis.”
Whilst he may be the top seed in Doha, Thiem knows he will not be the main attraction in the tournament. Instead it will be three-time champion Roger Federer who is playing in his first tournament in over a year due to a right knee injury. The only way the two players will face each other in the tournament is if they both reach the final.
“We are rivals, and of course we want to beat each other in the tournament, [but] I still really love to watch him play tennis,” said Thiem. “[He] looks so nice, the way he plays, the way he approaches the game of tennis.
“On the one hand, I’m also a big fan of his still, and that’s why I really love that he’s back and that I can watch him again. That’s what pretty much everybody is thinking, and I hope that he’s coming back strong, as well.”
Theim, who has a bye in the first round, will start his campaign against Russian wildcard Aslan Karatsev who stunned the tennis world with his run to the semi-finals of the Australian Open earlier this year. Their match is scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
