ATP Beijing: Dominic Thiem meets Gasquet at the start - Alexander Zverev meets Tiafoe
Dominic Thiem starts at the 500cc tournament in Beijing from Monday. The 26-year-old is in position 1 there.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Sep 28, 2019, 03:28 pm
In round 1, Thiem meets the Frenchman Richard Gasquet, formerly number 7 in the tennis world. The 33-year-old, however, recently struggled with injuries: in 2017 he had appendicitis, then with back problems. At the beginning of 2019, Gasquet underwent groin surgery and only started touring again in May. A semi-final in 's-Hertogenbosch and in Cincinnati has since been the best results for Gasquet, in the ATP ranking it has dropped to 66th place in the meantime, currently it is number 41.
Thiem has no particularly good memories of the previous duels with Gasquet: 0: 2 is in the internal balance sheet, Gasquet won in Basel in 2015 in two sets, in Vienna in 2017 in three sets.
As part of the Laver Cup, Thiem had returned as "fully healthy" and had suffered a win ( against Shapovalov ) and a defeat ( against Taylor Fritz ). He lost to Fabio Fognini in a show match in Wuhan on Saturday. He started doubles with the Italian in Beijing, the first opponents were Gao Xin and Hua Runhao.
In Geneva, Thiem had spent trying to be 100% tennis again before the Masters tournament in Shanghai and the home game in Vienna - that had not yet been the case in Geneva. The fact that he was healthy again was "the most important thing".
In round two in Beijing, either Kyle Edmund or Zizhen Zhang would wait in the event of a win. Andy Murray, potential opponent in the quarter-finals, starts against Matteo Berrettini.
Thiem against Zverev in the final?
Alexander Zverev is in second place, who also got a difficult start with wildcard player Frances Tiafoe. Although the Hamburger leads 4: 1 in direct comparison, at the last meeting at the US Open a few weeks ago Zverev had to go over five sets.
In position 3 in Beijing is Stefanos Tsitsipas, who meets Dusan Lajovic; Karen Khachanov as number 4 of the tournament starts against a qualifier.