French Open: Dominic Thiem without curd cheese favourite against Stefanos Tsitsipas

Dominic Thiem will play for the third round of the French Open 2018 on Wednesday against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, against whom Thiem has played three times in 2018.

By Jens Huiber from Paris

The tennis community doesn’t have to worry about Stefano’s Tsitsipas´ future: Athletically the Greek has shown at the latest with the final entry in Barcelona that he can be expected in the coming years, but also the financial flank seems well covered: Patricio Apey, the manager of Alexander Zverev, takes care of the agendas of Tsitsipas.

After his painstaking opening win over qualifier Carlos Taberner, Apey had arranged a rendezvous with the New York Times to host the world press in the Aegean. Just in Paris.

What Tsitsipas had to tell, the readers of the Times will only learn in a few days, another chapter of the success story will be written on Wednesday: against Dominic Thiem.

However, he showed himself to be much more confident at the start in Roland Garros than his opponent tomorrow. Ilya Ivashka was allowed to snack on court 1 for 15 minutes, then Thiem had stowed the sweets safe for children again.

In Barcelona, when Thiem was taken by surprise by Tsitsipas, he played a real quark, that was different now. In retrospect, the opponents defeated last week once again validated Thiem’s performance in Lyon: Gilles Simon, Dusan Lajovic and Guillermo Garcia Lopez are all in round two of the French Open 2018, Roberto Carballes Baena has put Benoit Paire in a big fight.

This is the fourth match between the two men in 2018, after Doha, Indian Wells and Barcelona. According to Thiem, Paris are playing like a hard court with a fine layer of sand, so the first two matches have as much – or little – significance as the last one.

It is to be assumed that Thiem will also arrive in blue on Wednesday. The salmon version, which Alexander Zverev markets in Paris, is only suitable for the Lower Austrian at summer temperatures. This is unlikely to happen in the coming days after the cooling off on Tuesday. The not quite professional white trousers are at least fashionably great fun.

Before the tournament began, Thiem said there were opponents he could beat in a best-of-five match. Without mentioning names, of course. Stefanos Tsitsipas could fall into this category as he lost to Denis Shapovalov in three sets in Australia at the beginning of the year. Just like last year in Wimbledon against Dusan Lajovic and before that in Paris against Ivo Karlovic.

Here are the matches between Dominic Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas