Dominic Thiem has mastered his first task at the French Open 2018: Austria’s number one defeated Ilya Ivashka from Belarus in three sets.
By Jens Huiber from Paris
The columns of Austrian tennis fans moved on to Court 1 after Andreas Haider-Maurer’s match. There Dominic Thiem was announced. Problem: While the 12er is a freely accessible place, the visitor needs a special ticket for the old bullring. Some red-white-red aficionados nevertheless made it.
And Dominic Thiem has not disappointed his supporters, with a 6:2, 6:4, 6:2 after 1:44 hours against Ilya Ivashka safely qualified for the second round.
The first set lasted only 28 minutes, Thiem parried the service of the Belarusian well and did not allow anything with his own service. From the meeting in the Davis Cup in St. Pölten the Austrian number one had taken away that the forehand is the rather weaker side of Ivashka, accordingly Thiem massaged this part of the course.
It was also a forehand error that brought Thiem the next break right at the beginning of the second set, the next followed for 3-0. 4-4 a few minutes later was also due to a significant increase in Ivashka’s performance. But Thiem immediately took the break for 5:4 again, serving a set two after 42 minutes of play.
The third act was again completely in the direction of the favourite, Thiem scored the second match point after 84 minutes with a forehand volley.
In round two the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, who had surprisingly big problems against qualifier Carlos Taberner from Spain, now waits. Thiem lost to Tsitsipas in Barcelona a few weeks ago, but won twice this season.
So Dominic Theim played in Roland Garros in 2017: