Dominic Thiem will continue at the ATP Masters 1000 Tournament in Indian Wells: The Lichtenwörther will meet Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay on Monday evening (local time).
Dominic Thiem is allowed to get to know the full spectrum of the tournament, which would like to operate as a fifth Grand Slam event, at the BNP Paribas Open 2018 in Indian Wells at an early stage: At the beginning of his individual performance, Austria’s number one opened the Center Court against Stefanos Tsitsipas, Pablo Cuevas is now facing an early evening shift, and in Stage 2 it should not be possible to do so. Thiem has been able to get used to late shifts during the last few weeks, he had seldom got into bed before midnight in Acapulco.
The first phase against Tsitsipas was a furious Thiem, the objective spectators had to worry a little about the self-confidence of the young Greek: Tsitsipas was too dominant played by his opponent. The fact that Thiem still had to go over three sets was due to a concentration lapse – and the fact that suddenly some of the extremely flat balls stuck in the net. Or, however, good chances on the net have not been exploited purposefully enough.
Günter Bresnik has basically enjoyed the match of his protégé. The coach, who will join Thiem again in Miami, would have wished for a little more trajectory, especially because Tsitsipas would have had serious problems with this on the backhand side. Of course Dominic Thiem knows this, the error analysis starts during the matches. And it’s still going to be finished by phone right now.
Now Cuevas is a man who is very familiar with the theme of “trajectory”. Cuevas could have stemmed from the old South American sand court school (hence a copy of one of his two coaches, Alberto Mancini), the spin is the natural friend of the 32-year-old.
Last year, Austrian tennis fans had the opportunity to watch Pablo Cuevas at work twice – at the Generali Open in Kitzbühel. There the current number 34 of the world had entered the tournament as one of the favourites, lost early against Sebastian Ofner, but then won the title in the doubles competition alongside Guillermo Duran. At the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Vienna, Cuevas lost to Jan-Lennard Struff in round one.
Against Dominic Thiem, Pablo Cuevas won only the first of three games, in 2015 at the French Open on Court 3. In this match Thiem had a chance to win the other one, Cuevas knew how to destroy most of them with his serve on the Austrian’s backhand. Thiem’s return has improved by several levels since then, the last two games have won number five in Indian Wells.
The setback is also a strength of Cuevas, says Günter Bresnik, but Dominic Thiem is the favourite. Not only because of the difference in the ATP world ranking. His protégé is simply the better tennis player.
What’s more, the Cuevas? playground fits better into Thiem’s concept than that of colleagues Kevin Anderson, Juan Martin del Potro or Tomas Berdych. All of them are gentlemen who operate with a strong serve and shallow balls. By the way, Dominic Thiem could already try his hand at Berdych in the next round: Providing he wins against Cuevas and the Czech against Hyeon Chung.
Here is the men’s single panel in Indian Wells