After a roller-coaster battle with injury, next week Dominic Thiem will return to the venue where he achieved the biggest win of his career.
Two years have passed since the Austrian sensationally battled back from two sets down to oust Alexander Zverev in an epic US Open final. Two months later he would also reach the final of the ATP Finals which was the last time he had played a title match. At the start of 2021, Thiem experienced difficulty on the court with motivational issues after achieving such a milestone. Then a serious wrist injury sidelined him for months.
It has been a far from easy return for the 28-year-old who has a win-loss record on the Tour of 8-9 so far this season with his best run being to the semi-finals of the Gstaad Open. He did however reach the quarter-finals or better at his last three tournaments which took place on the European clay.
“In Rome and Paris, I was just not ready to face the top-level guys. My game was not there yet,” Thiem said during an interview with tennis.com. “I played 10 good matches in Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbühel, the goal now is to get the rhythm on hard courts as soon as possible, to play two great tournaments here in the U.S. And then a pretty intense calendar until the end of the year to hopefully reach my goal, which is getting back to the Top 100.”
Currently ranked outside the top 200, Thiem received a wildcard to play in the upcoming US Open where he will be making his eighth main draw appearance. He is one of three players in the main draws who will start their campaign by winning their seven previous matches played at the New York Major. Daniil Medvedev is the defending champion and Rafael Nadal won the title in 2019 but hasn’t played since.
“There is a huge difference between Daniil, Rafa and me because maybe the two of them are the biggest favourites for the title. And I’m one of a hundred outsiders,” the former world No.3 explains. “They played a great year, they played a Slam final against each other, played a full year. And me, I’m still on my way back. But still, I’m very proud to be in this very small circle of players.”
Thiem is tuning up his game ahead of the last major of 2022 by playing in this week’s Winston-Salem Open. An ATP 250 event which includes just one top 20 player (Grigor Dimitrov) in the field. He began his campaign with a marathon 6-7 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (6), win over JJ Wolf that lasted longer than three hours and didn’t conclude until after midnight.
“I’m super happy to get that win, [my] first win on hard courts since a very long time, since March ’21, I guess. It was not easy at all today with the rain delay, coming back out there at 11:15 p.m. It was very late. I had trouble [getting] into the match again,” . “But luckily I raised the level a little bit in the third-set tie-break and compared to Kitzbühel, where similar stuff happened with the rain, the luck was on my side today.”
This week is the first time Thiem is playing in the main draw at Winston-Salem after losing in qualifying back in 2012. Awaiting him in the second round will be top seed Dimitrov who he trails 2-4 in their head-to-head. It will be their first meeting on the Tour since the 2021 Australian Open.
