Paris Masters: Thiem bites through against Coric

Dominic Thiem has reached the quarter finals of the Rolex Paris Masters. Against the Croatian Borna Coric Austria’s number one won 6:7 (3), 6:2 and 7:5.

The spectators in Paris-Bercy were ripped early from their seats when Dominic Thiem and Borna Coric did not torch for long and showed top class tennis.

Above all, the fourth encounter with the Croatian was a bright one and he worked his way up to a break point early on. However, Coric was quick on his feet and fended him off spectacularly. It seemed as if Thiem would be able to repeat his performance from the previous round against Gilles Simon and played confidently.

The Lower Austrian surprised his opponent again and again with net attacks and gained free points. Coric made an unusually large number of unforced mistakes and the Croatian didn’t seem quite up to speed after his gala performance against Daniil Medvedev.

Both players did not give each other any nudges with their own service and so the tiebreak had to make the decision in set. Here Coric played great tennis and quickly took the lead 5-1. Thiem’s chase to catch up failed to materialise and Coric deserved a 7:3 tie-break in the first round.

Right at the beginning of the second set, the Paris fans saw the first break of the game. To zero Thiem broke through his opponent’s Aufschkag and took the lead with 2:1.

Thiem went further and snatched another break to 5:2 and served it to the deserved 6:2 set equalizer. The Lower Austrian varied on serve and put Coric under pressure again and again with hard basic strokes.

The rallies were also dictated by the serve in the decision set. At almost 200 km/h, the average value was at Coric’ and Thiems first serves. At the score of 1:2, Thiem made fatal mistakes which helped Coric to his break. However, the 25-year-old struck back immediately and was back in the match.

Thiem managed the decisive break at 5:5 and Lichtenwörther then served out to win the match.

Jack Sock is waiting for Thiem in the quarter-finals. The US-American did not give the Tunisian Malek Jasiri a chance at 6:0 and 6:4 and is on a mission to defend his title. The double specialist celebrated the biggest single success of his career in the past and secured his participation in the Nitto ATP Finals with the victory in Paris.