ATP: Dominic Thiem versus Sam Querrey: The fear of the coffee table

Dominic Thiem has reached the second round of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna with a bumpy victory. There he meets Sam Querrey, an uncompromising player who loves long matches – and avoids coffee tables.

Bangkok, Autumn 2009, Sam Querrey is preparing for a 250cc tournament. He trains intensively, takes a shower after the session and puts on fresh clothes. To tie his shoes, he took a seat on the next best coffee table on the glass top. A manoeuvre that almost cost him his career.

“For 20, 25 seconds, everything was fine,” Querrey says. “But suddenly it breaks the glass, and I fall through the table.” At first he feels nothing, the shock and the adrenaline rushes into his body. However, a look down reveals evil: a splinter the size of a mobile phone has drilled its way into the right forearm, the blood is splashing out of the US American.

Today, Querrey is glad that the mishap happened to him at a tournament. The medical staff on site took care of the initial care, in the hospital the muscle was carefully sutured and in the next step also the skin. The splinter missed a nerve by only a millimeter. “The next season is one of the most successful in my career today. So I recovered quite well from it,” says Querrey with a portion of self-humour.

The current season Querrey will probably remain rather less in memory. While he was placed eleventh in February, higher than ever before in his career, the San Francisco man slipped to 56th place in the deciding sets with ten first-round defeats and a 1-8 record in tiebreaks.

Recently, however, his shape curve showed a slight upward trend: Diego Schwartzman, Marin Cilic, and Nikoloz Basilashvili are among the opponents who have lost to Querrey in recent weeks.

In round one of Vienna he defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in three sets and played a duel with Dominic Thiem. “I’m looking forward to it. Whenever you play a game against the crowd favourite in front of a full house, there’s a fun atmosphere – whether you win or lose,” Querrey said late Tuesday evening in conversation with tennisnet.

And continues: “We have already played a few matches against each other. He won some of them, but so did I. The matchup is quite entertaining. I hope there are some nice points and a good match.”

Against Querrey, Thiem has to be prepared above all for strong service and swift forehands. “He lives on his serve,” Thiem declared. “He likes to risk a lot during the returns, which of course can partly work out. And then it will be tough against him.”

The number one of the tournament therefore trained special setbacks on Wednesday, among others with Sebastian Ofner. Already in round one against Ruben Bemelsmans he was not satisfied with his returns, but he also found difficulties with his opponents.

“It’s difficult to return here. Many players had problems in their matches,” said Thiem. “That’s why the games went deep into the movement, there were many tiebreaks and long matches.”

A fate that Thiem can also expect against Querrey. Querrey is listed in the ATP’s Stats-Ranking as the eighth best serve ever. Through his playing style he often carries himself into a tiebreak, at Grand Slam tournaments there were several marathon matches with his participation.

Therefore he was a little disappointed in the conversation with tennisnet about the decision to play a tiebreak in Wimbledon at 12:12 in the fifth set.

“It’s a pity. I am one of the few advocates of the long sentences,” he said. “I’ve been through some long matches myself, with results like 17:15 or 16:14. Those are the matches I remember the most, they were the most fun. I wish it had stayed with the old format.”

But not only Wimbledon changed the format, the Davis Cup also changed the mode a lot. Querrey, who has been a Davis Cup player for eleven years, does not take the side of the Reformers quite consistently.

“I like the new mode. I’m really looking forward to it,” he said, and explained: “The matches may not be so epic in terms of match duration, but I hope that the new Davis Cup will create a new form of atmosphere that will be just as epic.

The atmosphere on Thursday evening in the Vienna Stadthalle will probably remind Querrey of the old Davis Cup atmosphere when he measures up to Thiem in front of well over 7,000 spectators. A game with an away character. Let’s hope he stays away from all the coffee tables until then.