ATP: Biting into the semi-finals – Thiem defeats Pella and balances out

Dominic Thiem has reached the semi-finals at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires. The top seeded Lower Austrian won after an exciting first set 7:6 (7) and 6:4 against Guido Pella.

Dominic Thiem showed the necessary bite before his night shift. With a juicy apple between his teeth, the 24-year-old from Lower Austria had made himself comfortable in the grandstand of Court Guillermo Vilas. The menu featured the opening phase of the quarter-final between Gael Monfils and Leonardo Mayer, which the Frenchman won in three sets.

Inspired and nourished, Thiem got off to a better start. The advantage of the early break, however, could not be transported by the world ranked sixth. Pella regained his lost service game and turned out to be the expected unpleasant opponent.

A rapid ups and downs developed that was garnished with a high error rate on both sides. Thiem was the better player, but because he missed five set points, the tiebreak had to decide.

At first, the tide turned in favour of the Argentinean. After two missed chances to win the set Thiem was still on the spot – in the seventh attempt he finally managed to get through with a well thought-out counterstop!

In the second set, the Buenos-Aires winner of 2016 quickly won 3-0 with the double-break. Pella came near again, the decisive turnaround was the world rankings-59. of the game any more. Thiem turned his second match point after an hour and 48 minutes with a crunching backhand longline winner.

After his victory in Melbourne, Thiem Pella was able to defeat him a second time – and thus even out the internal balance. The first two comparisons went to the South American in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Chengdu in 2017.

In the semi-final against Gael Monfils (not before 7:30 p. m. in our LIVE-Scores) the “Dominator” can make up what he was denied in Doha due to illness. He will also make it to the final in doubles: together with his long-time buddy Diego Schwartzman, he will face the top seeded Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah.

Andreas Haider-Maurer and Dusan Lajovic had lost their quarter-finals to Guillermo Duran and Maximo Gonzalez (both Argentina) 7-6,4-6 and 10-12 in the match tiebreak.

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