ATP Buenos Aires: Dominic Thiem after success over Pablo Cuevas in the semi-finals
Dominic Thiem has made a detour to the semi-finals of Buenos Aires. The top seeded Austrian defeated Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas 4: 6, 6: 4 and 6: 3 after initial difficulties. You can find the match in our live ticker.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: Feb 16, 2019, 02:31 am
"Whenever I came here, I played very well right from the start." With these words, Dominic Thiem described his relationship with Buenos Aires after his second round win over Maximilian Marterer Capital opened ten times on the Guillermo Vilas Court, as many times he was allowed to leave the place as the winner.
With Pablo Cuevas, the 25-year-old was expecting one of the most difficult tasks in the metropolis in the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 tournament, after all, the 33-year-old feels particularly comfortable, just like Thiem on sand, and has already hit the Lichtenwörther on ashes: 2015 remained the meanwhile only world ranking list-78. victorious in four sets at the Stade de Roland Garros, the South American also won the last duel. Last year, Thiem had to give up in Indian Wells due to an ankle injury in the third round.
Thiem perplexed at her own setback
There was no sign of injury at Thiem after his almost one month break in Buenos Aires, but it was the top seed who had to accept the first break. With inexplicable mistakes from the T-line, he gave the Uruguayan the game 2: 1, who mainly set the pace with his one-handed backhand and almost secured another break to 4: 1. However, Thiem was able to fend off a breakball with a wonderful stop.
However, Cuevas was not seriously impressed by this, overall the 33-year-old lost only four points in the first set on his own serve and earned him fully deserved 6: 4. The helplessness of the Lower Austrian in his setback was particularly striking. The positioning was rarely correct - sometimes Thiem was too far behind the baseline, sometimes he acted a little further forward, but then mostly started with over-motivated strokes. In any case, the 25-year-old was unable to exert any pressure.
Thiem breakt to the sentence equalization
That should change in the South American's first service game in the second set: thanks to a backhand error from Cuevas and a slightly changed return position (somewhat offensive), Thiem broke to 2-0. A break, which the Austrian quickly confirmed, and thus caused a slightly cheerful expression on neo-tour companion Nicolas Massu.
The ominous seventh game should have caused particular enthusiasm for Chileans. After 0:40 behind Thiem played three times serve and volley, just as often he was successful with it. After a further break possibility was blocked, Thiem was able to make 5: 2, but a little later the Lichtenwörther had to accept a break. Cuevas broke thanks to a double error of the world ranking night to 4: 5 in his view.
But the defending champion did not let himself be put off by this, shook himself briefly and relieved the Uruguayan of the equalization. Above all, the somewhat improved return often had an effect, coupled with an excellent rate of 82% of first serves in the field, the set went well deservedly to the Austrian.
Thiem flash start in the third sentence is enough
Thiem took this momentum into the decisive third round, thanks to an incredible backhand return winner, the French Open finalist quickly turned 2: 0 last year. With other well-built points - especially the inside-out forehand caused Cuevas more and more headaches during the match - Thiem increased to 3: 0.
At times, the world ranking night played really good clay court tennis again, the kick-up serve and the balls with a lot of spin had an enormous effect on the Guillermo Vilas court and presented the still well performing Cuevas with sometimes unsolvable tasks. So Thiem managed to cross the finish line relatively safely. He converted his second match ball to 4: 6, 6: 4 and 6: 3 success and thus fixed the eleventh victory in the eleventh match in Buenos Aires.
In the semifinals, Thiem will not meet either Diego Schwartzman or Albert Ramos-Vinolas before 19:45 CET on Saturday. Afterwards, Lichtenwörther and Schwartzman also have to face the double semi-finals: for the two, they will face the Spaniards Jaume Munar and Albert Ramos-Vinolas.