Dominic Thiem reaches the quarter-finals of the ATP sand court tournament at Rothenbaum in Hamburg for the first time. The world ranking night from Austria defeated the Australian John Millman on Thursday afternoon at high summer temperatures with 6:2, 6:2.
After 1:12 hours the top seeded Thiem turned his third match point on the Centre Court with a service winner. “It was generally a much tighter match than the scoreboard suggests,” said the French open finalist in the Sky interview, speaking of a “solid” performance.
In the match for the semi-final on Friday, 24-year-old Thiem will play Nicolas Jarry of Chile, who benefited from the injury-related withdrawal of Richard Gasquet (France) from seventh place. “I’ve never played Jarry before. But he has great basic strokes, good serves and can actually beat winners from anywhere. I must be vigilant,” said the Austrian.
Thiem followed up his verbal announcement (“I absolutely want to win the tournament in Hamburg”) with deeds. His coach Günter Bresnik had warned in the Sky interview before the game of the world ranking-50th Millman. “He’s an experienced old fox. John has great fighting qualities, he plays very well on clay and reached the final in Budapest,” said Bresnik about the 29-year-old from Brisbane, against whom Thiem won the Bundesliga match tiebreak last weekend.
On Thursday afternoon Thiem was wide awake from the very beginning. In the third game he used his second break point and immediately after that he managed his service game to zero. A clear statement of the Lichtenwörther.
Again and again he used his backhand to drive the Australian out of the field. Thiem could also mostly rely on his serve. In the first set, the Davis Cup player, who will play Australia with Team Austria in September, scored 93 per cent of the points when the first service came.
At 4-1, he fended off three Millman break points in a row, winning the game with a forehand winner – and a little later, after 33 minutes, the opening round, when he benefited from a right-handed player’s mistake from Down Under.
Even after that, not much changed. Again and again the “Dominator”, which as always varied brilliantly, was cheered on by the spectators. At Rothenbaum, the down-to-earth Bresnik protégé has long since become a favourite of the public because of his spectacular game and his friendly manner – especially since there are no more German players in the race.
Thiem weakened a bit in the second set, but the match never slipped out of his hands despite the sweaty temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius on the main court. After an early break, he took Millman’s serve to his own 5-2 lead and closed the sack shortly afterwards. He saved energy for the final phase of the 1.753 million Euro German Open.
Domi” feels at home in the Hanseatic city. He made friends with the musicians of the group Revolverhelden during the tournament in Halle/Westphalia. On Wednesday he was having dinner with them – and again on Thursday. Seems to bring luck…