Dominic Thiem has reached the quarter-finals at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Acapulco. The Austrian in third place defeated Denis Shapovalov in two sets. Sebastian Ofner, however, failed in the last sixteen at the ATP 250 event in Sao Paulo.
After the nail-biting game against Cameron Norrie, Dominic Thiem entered the final eight in Acapulco with a sovereign performance. The 24-year-old from Lower Austria beat NextGen star Denis Shapovalov 6:2 and 6:3.
Thiem showed his six years younger opponent from the beginning who is master of Cancha Central. After he took the Canadian’s service away from him in his first match, the world number six pulled up and away safely.
Above all, the high hit rate at the first serve (74 percent) made life easy for Thiem in the opening movement. When the first one came, 85 percent of the points were gained. However, Thiem was less precise when it came to the exploitation of break chances: the Lichtenwörther was able to exploit the second of eight opportunities to the decisive 5:2.
Thiem and Shapovalov had never competed on tour level before. At a training session at the academy of Günter Bresnik’s academy, however, the former Wimbledon winner of the junior team two years ago had already made an appearance in Vienna – with a lasting impression. The outstanding athletics of the youngster was already apparent at that time.
In the second act, Shapovalov stayed in the shop until 3-3, when Thiem retired again. After only 65 minutes, Austria’s top players were happy to make it into the next round, as a volley from the young Canadian narrowly ended up on the pitch.
There, the 2016 Acapulco champion will meet the winner of the match between Juan Martin del Potro and David Ferrer.
Sebastian Ofner missed the jump into the quarter-finals at the parallel clay court tournament in Sao Paulo. The 2017 Wimbledon sensation man was defeated by Pablo Cuevas (Uruguay/3)4-6 and 6-7 (4). In the previous year, Ofner had ranked 31st in the world. in Kitzbühel in three sets.
After overcoming qualifying, the 21-year-old from Styria had previously won his first match against Marco Cechinato on the tour level in over six months.