The Sand Court King against his Crown Prince: In New York, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem meet for the eleventh time, but for the first time not on their favourite surface. The Austrian pays off his chances against the defending champion.
Dominic Thiem said he would certainly not make this mistake again. That’s what the ten duels against Rafael Nadal taught him. “I won’t go into the game as laxly as I sometimes do on clay,” announced the Austrian before the quarter-finals at the US Open on Tuesday.
“We’ll see what happens,” Thiem said. But “completely under the wheels” come as in the finale of the French Open? “That’s not gonna happen to me anymore.”
Ten times Thiem and 17 times Majorchampion Nadal faced each other, always on sand, the favourite surface of both opponents. “Three very beautiful and seven terrible experiences” Thiem has made. By no means a bad record against the best clay court player in tennis history. But Thiem, who is considered Nadal’s rightful heir on the red ash in Roland Garros, is not satisfied with this. “The first time on Hardcourt will be a new experience,” he said, “and hopefully a little more pleasant.”
Thiem refuses to make boastful combat announcements, but he knows what he can do. The 7-5, 6-2, 7-6 win over last year’s finalist Kevin Anderson was one of his best matches, he said after the victory over the South African who reached the final in Wimbledon in July.
Thiem made “extremely few mistakes”, Nadal, who ennobled him as a “fantastic player”, also noticed. “Dominic has a lot of strength, a great serve and is rightly in the quarter-finals,” said the Spaniard.
Thiem needed four attempts to survive the round of the last 16 in New York. In 2014 he had no chance against Tomas Berdych, in 2016 he gave up against Juan Martin del Potro, last year he was already leading 2-0 against the Argentinean, but lost two match points in front of thousands of frenetic fans from South America and later the match. Thiem has also learned from this. At 24, he’s not a youngster anymore, but he’s still the underdog against Nadal.
“I need a great day to keep up with him,” Thiem said. Nadal’s set losses against the Russian Karen Khachanov and 6:3, 6:3, 6:7, 6:4 against Nikolos Basilashvili from Georgia, the eight hours the Mallorcan spent on the court in these games, do not interest Thiem: “He only won three defeats this year and the Masters on Hardcourt in Toronto. He’s the top favorite.”
Nadal (32) admitted to having suffered “some physical problems” from the two marathon matches. He obviously has respect for Thiem, against whom he has to play his “best match so far if I want the chance to stay in the tournament”.
In Paris he had defeated Thiem in his first Grand Slam final, but he did not forget the defeats in Madrid (2018), Rome (2017) and Buenos Aires (2016). Now the first encounter between the sand court king and his crown prince on Hardcourt is imminent. “It’ll be a different match,” Nadal said, “but it’s still a tennis game.”
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