ATP: Dominic Thiem needs a new plan in St. Petersburg

Dominic Thiem will play at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament in St. Petersburg for his third title in 2018, with Roberto Bautista Agut in the way (not before 2:30 pm, in our LIVE-TICKER and live on KIA-Stream). Thiem has never won against the Spaniard.

Dominic Thiem apologized to the audience after his win against Daniil Medvedev. He’d be sorry he took the last Russian out of the competition. But it doesn’t help: Thiem wants to go to the ATP finals in London, for the third time in a row. Points do not do, the advantage the Eighth Thiem has over his first follower John Isner is still not reassuringly large.

Against Medvedev it became an amazingly disturbing evening. Not because the Russian was not a danger to every player per se – but because Thiem was very generous with his break chances at the beginning of the second set. As always, the tie-break at the end was a matter of luck.

What is only half the truth: Dominic Thiem is simply a better tennis player than Daniil Medvedev, has more possibilities through play.

Thiem was then also asked how he planned to beat his coming opponent Roberto Bautista-Agut. The answer was unspecific in that the 25-year-old from Lower Austria has not yet been able to solve this mystery: there have been three matches between the two, all of them in 2015, all in favour of Bautista Agut.

After all, you often train together, the Spaniard is an exceptionally nice guy. And also one that is slowly getting back into shape. “RBA” retired in round two Mikhail Youzhny, was unscathed against Marco Cecchinato in round eight.

Thiem and Bautista Agut were actually already on a collision course at the US Open, the third round should have been according to Setzung. Dominic Thiem has fulfilled his part of the agreement, the Spaniard was already defeated in round one by Australian Jason Kubler.

Last weekend, the two opponents were both represented in the Davis Cup: While Thiem won both individual matches against Australia, Roberto Bautista lost to Lucas Pouille in five sets on Friday. Even then, however, the ascending form of the Spaniard could already be recognized, which is now continuing in St. Petersburg.

Here the single tableau in St. Petersburg