ATP Challenger Rennes: Dominic Thiem Gilles Simon
Dominic Thiem was able to put the ex-world-class player Gilles Simon in his place in three sentences at the ATP Challenger in Rennes.
by Stefan Bergmann
last edit: Sep 13, 2022, 09:59 pm
Here is the live ticker of the game to read.
Anyone who watched Dominic Thiem's first-round game at the ATP Challenger tournament in Rennes (France) live in front of the television or monitor will have noticed that there were two different personalities of the Austrian on the pitch. Ultimately, the Austrian won against former world-class player and local hero Gilles Simon 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
In the first one and a half sentences you could see the Austrian's number one personality, who had already been seen a few times in 2022 - not bad, but unsettled, error-prone and overall too weak for a quite attractive Simon, who showed that he wasn't from want to give in from the start.
Now against fifth-seeded Brits
But then in the middle of the second sentence the change to personality number two: more aggressive, more precise and overall more present on the pitch. The impact of the change was just visible. While Simon was being pushed more and more into the defensive, the Lichtenwörther pushed a little bit more and more bit by bit.
It remains to be hoped that in the round of 16 against the British Ryan Peniston, personality two will enter Center Court in north-western France right from the start. Peniston is seeded five in the hard indoor event and had defeated local hero Antoine Escoffier 6-3, 7-6 (5) in round one.