Dominic Thiem has reached the round of 16 at the French Open after a tedious working day on Court 1. The Lower Austrian won against Matteo Berrettini in four sets.
By Jens Huiber from Paris
Two sugar balls, three double faults: In the first two sets of the third round match between Dominic Thiem and Matteo Berrettini the momentum turned. And the Austrian was responsible for both: In the first act, Thiem brought himself back into the business with two wonderful passing balls after an early break – and granted Berrettini his comeback en suite in round two with six unusable serves.
Thiem won 6:3, 6:7 (5), 6:3 and 6:2 and Kei Nishikori from Japan, who beat Gilles Simon in the round of 16, waited in the round of 16 on Sunday.
Thiem started the match with a loss of serve and also fought an early verbal fight with the chair referee: After light rain had set in, Thiem demanded an interruption. Which he didn’t get. The 24-year-old Lichtenwörther nevertheless fought his way back and took a 6:3 lead after 30 minutes.
Berrettini had entered the third round with two victories over Oscar Otte and Ernests Gulbis. So against a Lucky loser (Otte), and against a qualifier. Thiem defeated Ilya Ivashka effortlessly in round one, then had to fight much more with Stefanos Tsitsipas.
In the second set against Berrettini Thiem showed a break, but made three double mistakes in the eighth rack. In the tiebreak the favourite was permanently trailing, Berrettini managed the equaliser after 1:25 hours.
Thiem had taken on David Goffin for about 30 minutes this morning, the Belgian started his match against Gael Monfils a few minutes after the Austrian.
In the middle of the third set Thiem suddenly found his first serve again – while Berrettini had the biggest problems with his playing equipment. In the final decisive match for 3-5, the Italian already broke the fourth string of the match. Thiem served out with an undamaged bat after 1:57 hours for a 2:1 set lead.
In the fourth set, Thiem was the clearly better player, Berrettini could have taken off his first service game, then did so for 2-1 and another time for 5-2.
Kei Nishikori is now waiting for Dominic Thiem in the round of 16. The Japanese player has won both previous games against Thiem: 2015 in halle on grass, 2016 in Rome on sand.