At this week’s Swedish Open Dominic Thiem says his confidence is rising as he continues his best run at a Tour event in over a year.
The former US Open champion entered the Tournament seeking his first ATP Tour victory of any sort since May 2021 when he reached the third round of the Italian Open in Rome. Thiem has been sidelined from action for almost nine months due to a right wrist injury. He began his comeback during the last week of March by playing in a Challenger event. Since then he has suffered first-round defeats in Marbella, Belgrade, Estoril, Madrid, Rome, Geneva and Roland Garros. Thiem didn’t play at Wimbledon and opted instead to conduct further training.
It appears that the decision to have a training stint has paid off for the Austrian this week who has won back-to-back matches in Sweden. He began his campaign with a win over Emil Ruusuvuori before beating Spanish veteran Roberto Bautista Agut on Thursday. Both of those matches were in three sets.
“It is a process. I beat [Emil] Ruusuvuori and today (Thursday) I beat Bautista Agut. Two really top opponents, so if I can beat them I am definitely back, I am into the quarters of a really strong tournament, so I am happy. It is a process, but I am going the right way.” Thiem said after defeating Bautista Agut.
It is only the fifth time Thiem has reached the quarter-final stage of a tournament since winning his maiden major title at the 2020 US Open. Before this week, the last time he did so was at the 2021 Madrid Open.
“The win against Emil gave me confidence that I can compete against the best players in the world and today against Roberto. He is always such a tough opponent. I was expecting and hoping it would be a close match. Then when I won the first set in the tie-break I said ‘Hey, I can win today.’ I had the belief until the end of the match and the third set was really good.” He added.
The 28-year-old will play Argentina’s Sebastian Baez in the last eight on Friday in what will be their first meeting on the Tour.
Thiem is currently ranked outside the world’s top 300. So far in his career, he has won 17 ATP titles and earned just under $30M in prize money.
