Dominic Thiem has reached the quarter-finals of the Masters 1000s tournament in Madrid. He defeated the Croatian Borna Coric in three contested sets.
The match between them was last year’s return match, when Thiem won 6-1, 6-4 and finally reached the final; Coric had the upper hand in Miami in 2017 – one to one.
In this year’s round of 16 Thiem won 2:6, 7:6 (5), 6:4 against the young Croatian.
Coric was the better start to the match, he took the first service game from the Lichtenwörther directly. On his own serve, however, the world ranked 35th did not allow much – and when things seemed to get critical, he saved himself with his strong service. Another break at 5:2 meant the preliminary decision in set one. Coric brought in a great 82 percent of the first serves and scored the point in 78 percent of all cases.
In the second set Thiem started with a service win to zero and came directly to his first break point – which Coric destroyed with an ace. In the further process it came to a balanced game. At 4:3 for Thiem, Coric had to beat Einstand three times, but managed his game – again with an ace. Afterwards he managed the break, but Thiem used his third break point to equalize 5:5 shortly before closing time. In the tiebreak Thiem was already leading 6:1 and let Coric go again, but then kept his nerve.
In the decisive round, both players did not give themselves any nakedness. At 3-4 from Thiems point of view Coric came to the first break chances, three times Thiem fended off with strong nerves and balanced. Then Thiem struck and served for victory.
In the quarter-finals, the seventh in the world rankings will now face Rafael Nadal or Diego Schwartzman. Last year Thiem lost 6:7 (8), 4:6 against Nadal in the final.
The men’s single tableau in Madrid
All information and results as well as insights behind the scenes of Madrid can be found in our current blog!