WTA: Kiki Mladenovic on Dominic Thiem: “Not everyone is as brave as he is”

Kristina Mladenovic with a big hymn of praise to her friend Dominic Thiem!

A few weeks ago, Dominic Thiem addressed his friend Kiki Mladenovic with fine words: She did her thing on the women’s tour, Thiem said, but he himself was more sensitive when things were not going so well on the court. Especially in this respect he could learn from his partner.

Mladenovic was amazed at these statements. “He actually said that? He is so modest and humble,” explained the 25-year-old in an interview with Tennis Magazine. “Maybe he’s underestimating himself.” Because Thiem is such a hard worker, the people on the tour know exactly how much is invested for his sport. “Not everyone is as brave and trains as many hours a day as he is.” Thiem is an inspiration when it comes to realizing his goals and dreams and getting better every day.

Like Thiem, Mladenovic sees almost exclusively positive effects in her relationship with athletes. She’d be living the same life if he wasn’t her boyfriend. The only negative thing maybe: all the travelling. But: “Fortunately, there are many combined tournaments where we see each other.” And even if the love of the two is still relatively fresh at just under one and a half years, Mladenovic already looks further ahead. “We’re looking forward to the day when it gets quieter, we’re older and don’t have to travel that much anymore.”

The explanation around one of her nicknames gave “Kiki” also, because in tour circles she is known among other things as “Kikipedia”. “In the Fed Cup, we gave each other funny nicknames,” Mladenovic remembers. She speaks so many languages, loves to learn and knows so much about so many different things – hence the reference to the online encyclopedia. You probably don’t mean to be deadly serious, but you’ll tell all tennis fans: “If you want to know something, ask Kikipedia!”