ATP Antwerp: 3 match points saved! Dominic Thiem beats Hurkacz and is in the semifinals!
After a fighting performance, Dominic Thiem reached the semi-finals of the 250 tournament in Antwerp. He beat Hubert Hurkacz 3:6, 7:6 (9) and 7.6 (4).
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Oct 21, 2022, 05:09 pm
Thiem celebrated his first win against the world number 11. in the fourth comparison. A few weeks ago he had lost in Metz.
Thiem had break chances against himself in his first service game, released twice well (there was a brutal, wonderful backhand pass); Hurkacz but already a return winner behind. And then benefited from a forehand error.
Otherwise, the man from Poland allowed little on his own serve, only in the last game did Thiem get his first break chance, "Hubi" but humorlessly shot three serves afterwards to lead the set.
Curious tiebreak in set 2
In the second round, Thiem showed himself to be safe with his own serve and also came into play better in his opponent's service games, but without getting anything countable out of it. At 4: 4, Thiem then had to make a debut after carelessly given balls, but then approached this task with great concentration.
Hurkacz did that again at the beginning of the tie-break, in which he managed a mini-break directly. Thiem came to 4: 4, but received another mini-break. It got strange at 6: 4 for Hurkacz: He warped a forehand, then Thiem missed a backhand, almost at least - she touched the net and fell over to equalize. Thiem came to the set ball himself, but Hurkacz parried with the serve. He boldly tackled another set point with a serve-and-volley on the second serve. Thiem had another chance, resolutely followed a strong serve - set equalization, after a total of three match balls saved!
In the decision, both setbacks kept getting chances, but Hurkacz got the first opportunity to break at 4: 3 - but Thiem stayed cool. After that, both remained sovereign until the tie-break. Sensational here: Thiem's backhand return stroke on Hurkacz's second serve to make it 3: 1, another one in the rally followed to make it 4: 1 - the decision.
In the semifinals, Thiem now meets Sebastian Korda, who had no problems at all in the 6: 0, 6: 2 against Yoshihito Nishioka.
The other quarterfinals are David Goffin against Richard Gasquet and Felix Auger-Aliassime against Dan Evans.