Dominc Thiem reaches the quarter-finals of the US Open for the first time: Austria’s number one defeated Kevin Anderson from South Africa and now faces either Rafael Nadal or Nikoloz Basilashvili.
Summer had returned to the American East Coast, just in time for Labour Day weekend. And Dominic Thiem can continue to enjoy the friendly weather in Flushing Meadows: The ninth seeded Austrian defeated last year’s finalist Kevin Anderson 7-5, 6-2. Thiem will face either defending champion Rafael Nadal or Nikoloz Basilashvili in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
Günter Bresnik had worked on a slice version with Thiem while recording at Armstrong Stadium, Philipp Kohlschreiber had driven Alexander Zverev to the edge of despair the day before with the undercut balls. And beyond that.
Debut for Thiem at Louis Armstrong Stadium
Kevin Anderson, however, has a lot of self-confidence at the US Open, as he proved in his five-set wins over Ryan Harrison and Denis Shapovalov. Against the latter at Louis Armstrong Stadium, Anderson was familiar with the conditions, Dominic Thiem made his debut in the newly built arena.
Six different tennis players have reached the final of a major this year, so two of them faced each other on Sunday. French open finalist Thiem found his way into the match right from the start, also as a setback against Anderson, who had failed in Wimbledon’s last match against Novak Djokovic. Nevertheless, break opportunities remained scarce on both sides.
Anderson loses serve in eleventh game
Thiem made the better impression at the service, took the first two chances on Anderson’s serve with a short forehand cross-passing ball in the eleventh game. As usual, the South African defended himself without a sense of humour. A net roller gave Thiem chance number three, the following backhand return flew into the out. Anderson could no longer counter the Austrian’s fourth advance. Break. After 53 minutes Thiem scored the first set ball for 7:5 with his own serve.
At the beginning of the second act, Thiem continued seamlessly from the last minutes: to zero, he lost Anderson’s serve, even had a chance of another break for 3-0, which followed for 5-2, Thiem had not allowed a single break point up to that point. This remained the same after 1:29 hours. Anderson sunk a forehand return into the net. 7-5, 6-2 for Thiem.
With a 2-0 lead in the fourth round of the US Open, however, the 24-year-old from Lower Austria had not had a good experience a year ago: Thiem recklessly gave up the third set against Juan Martin del Potro, after which a fight followed, from which the Argentinian emerged as the winner.
After the second round, Anderson took an academic quarter to change clothes. Thiem continued to play with concentration, especially the forehand cross balls repeatedly presented Anderson with almost unsolvable problems. In the seventh game last year’s fifth seeded finalist Thiem made the first break point of the third set with a double error, Anderson fended off.
In the tiebreak Theim made the mini-break for 3-2, the next for 6-2. 2:37 hours later Thiem made his way into his first quarter-finals at the US Open.
Here is the single tableau at the US Open