ATP:”DelPo” too strong for Thiem – now against Zverev

Dominic Thiem was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Acapulco: The Lower Austrian lost his fourth match against Juan Martin del Potro despite a strong comeback. The Argentinean now meets Alexander Zverev.

Del Potro won the final match of the day in Acapulco against Thiem despite a late comeback of the world’s number six 6-2 and 7-6 (7). The 29-year-old from Tandil was able to score 4-0 in the internal duel with Dominic Thiem. Prior to that, del Potro had twice won the US Open and the first-ever ATP Masters 1000 Tournament in Madrid.

Thiem started the match with an ace, but already had problems in his second service game: The Austrian resisted the first Breakball del Potros, with the second one his forehand landed in the net. The next break for del Potro, who found his rhythm better and better as a club with the continuation of the match, was 5-2 in a game in which Thiem had already led 40:15. After 31 minutes Thiem finished the first set with his 13th set. unencumbered mistake – del Potro had only made three at that time.

The Argentinean defended well and was able to turn the momentum with his forehand in many rallies, which he actually denied from the defensive.

The second set started quite unfavorably – Dominic Thiem quickly led 30:0 on his own serve, but then took too much risk. And immediately brought Del Potro the next break. In the following service game, the Lichtenwörther was unlucky at his first break point in the match, a Ball del Potros grazed the net edge, Thiem slicte the following backhand into the out. And “DelPo” got the 2:0 after all. It was to be Thiem’s last chance to make a comeback until the tenth game. But then followed the Austrian’s best return game – in which he finally got the first break to 5:5. In the short decision Thiem twice managed a guided tour with Mini-Break, del Potro equalled twice. But Thiem gave Thiem two set points for the 4:6 with a double error. The Argentinean defended the first one with his serve, Thiem had bad luck with the second one: His backhand sailed from the net to the end. At 6:7 from his point of view del Potro served two aces, Thiem risked everything at the Argentinean’s first match point. However, his second serve missed the line by a few millimetres.

In the semi-final, del Potro will now face the German number one, Alexander Zverev. He won the second match of the day against Ryan Harrison. So far, there has been only one match between del Potro and the German number one: last autumn’s US Open winner of 2009 in Acapulco won the match in three sets.

Here the single panel in Acapulco