Dominic Thiem has dropped out of the Australian Open and will have to wait for his first quarter-final appearance at a major outside of Roland Garros.
From Ulrike Weinrich from Melbourne
Dominic Thiem sat in Interview Room 2 just under an hour after Melbourne’s last sixteen and seemed to be extremely calm. Disappointment? Sure, she was there! But the number five of the seed list didn’t really want to make accusations:”I didn’t play badly and I have to pay him respect for his performance. He hurt me with his serve, my return wasn’t so good. In the fifth set, small things were decisive,”Thiem said after the 2:6,6:4,6:4,6:7 (4:7), 7:6 (9:7), 3:6 in 3:54 hours against the American upstart of Tenny’s Sandgren. The world rankings-97. from Tennessee, a college player for many years, is only the second professional in the last 20 years to reach the quarter-finals as Australian Open debutante.
Even Thiem could not stop “Haudrauf” Sandgren, who had already eliminated the former Happy Slam champion Stan Wawrinka (Switzerland/No. 9). Thiem therefore feared a little bit the next morning:”This will certainly not be my best day,”explained the Lichtenwörther,”but when I am back home, everything is fine. In terms of the pain factor, the “Dominator” wanted to knock out the knockout. will not compare with the knockout in September 2017 at the US Open.
At the time, Thiem had lost a 2-0 lead at the Flushing Meadows Grandstand against Argentine Juan Martin del Potro and forgave two match points:”That was harder to bear than today’s match because I let the match slide out of my hands at that time. The Lower Austrian was only able to take advantage of two out of twelve break-outs. He fought off the first match point in the fourth set with a spectacular backhand winner along the line – and forced the final round.
Thiem had to “move” from his beloved “living room” Margaret Court Arena to the futuristic Hisense Stadium, where the Plexicushion surface is a little faster. Sandgren, who hadn’t won a single Grand Slam match before Melbourne, took advantage of this. In the middle of the second movement Thiem shouted loudly at a change of sides:”What should I do? The faster I play, the faster the ball comes back!”
Günter-Bresnik protégé Thiem must therefore continue to wait for his first quarter-final appearance at a major outside Roland Garros. In Paris, the power player with the fabulous backhand had been in series twice in the last round. The expectation before the duel with the confessing Donald Trump voter Sandgren (26) had been great “I wanted to go far at the US Open. I’ll try to do everything I can now,”Thiem had announced before the duel with the unconventional-looking US boy.
In Melbourne, he had been feeling good after curing an infection that forced him to give up on the semi-finals at the Doha tournament,”I played three good games at the Australian Open,” said Thiem, who now wants to play a training block at home and then, probably at the Davis Cup against Belarus in St. Paul’s at the beginning of February. But it is not yet quite fixed,”said Domi, who has never been as high at a major event as at the Happy Slam 2018. Next stop for Thiem will be South America with the tournament participations in Rio de Janeiro and Acapulco, before he has to go hard again at the Masters in Indian Wells and Miami.