ATP Finals: Semi-final chance preserved!

Dominic Thiem won his group match against Pablo Carreno Busta in three sets at the ATP finals in London. Thiem won 6-3,3-6,6-4 and will play for the semi-finals on Friday.

By Florian Goosmann from London

Too many chances not used and finally earned: Dominic Thiem has kept the chance for his first semi-final at the ATP Tour Finals.

Thiem used his first break point at the 2:2 point, and at a score of 5:3 he used his second set point to break again and win the set. Although he was the more powerful player, he had only made half as many mistakes as his opponent (7:14). Thiem was never in danger during the entire first round when he served his own serve. Although he again only had a weak first serve rate of 47 percent – if the first one came, he scored 100 percent.

In the second round, Thiem came directly to a break chance, but did not make use of it and then let himself take the serve despite a 40:0 lead. The many simple mistakes, especially in the early stages of the movement, finally became his downfall, in the end there were 14 of them; for this he did not use any of his three break chances.

Carreno Busta opened the deciding set unconcentrated, Thiem broke right away, but missed out on a 40:15 lead at 3:2 – 3:3. Thiem remained energetically on the ball, but missed four more chances to break again, not least because Carreno Busta took the initiative courageously and scored great points. Thiem countered to nil, at 4:4 he took over the command again – and earned a break. Afterwards, he served to win the match.

On Friday, Thiem’s match against David Goffin is about the second place of the group “Pete Sampras” – and thus about the semi-finals. Grigor Dimitrov has already been named group winner.

More information will follow!