ATP Finals: Dominic Thiem celebrates opening victory over Tsitsipas
At the start of the ATP Finals 2020, Dominic Thiem retaliated for his defeat in the previous year's final. Thiem beat defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas 7: 6 (5), 4: 6 and 6: 3. (Here you can read the match in the live ticker!)
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Nov 15, 2020, 05:56 pm
Both players dominated over serve and forehand, gladly on the other's backhand, also gladly with a good transition to the net. It was Tsitsipas who had to fight harder, he had to fend off a break ball at 1: 1 and two pieces at 3: 3, but every three times the serve sat, followed by a good attack - Thiem could not fault himself.
In the tiebreak, however, then Tsitsipas: Thiem made up for a 3: 5 after a spectacular rally with a forehand cross pass and got the set ball with two aces. The Greek was baffled: He served strong, Thiem just got the bat, but then Tsitsipas caught an actually surefire forehand just before the net with the frame and played it in Thiem's run. He praised skillfully and then completed with an overview against the run, Tsitsipas' praise flew out - to win the set for the Lichtenwörther.
Tsitsipas is now getting the bat
In the second run Tsitsipas got off to a better start. He managed the break to 2-1 after Thiem attacked only half-heartedly and Tsitsipas was able to pull a fine forehand along the line. It was noticeable that "Tsitsi" now brought more returns in the field. In sentence 1, Thiem had scored 91 percent of his points after the first service, in the second "only" 67 percent. Tsitsipas only made four mistakes during the entire round.
Thiem fires the forehand
Thiem, however, was not impressed and set his forehand under fire - it was quickly 3-0 for the world number three, six forehand winners were there by then. At the breakball for Tsitsipas to make it 2: 3, Thiem was lucky that a determined backhand from his opponent only found half the way along the line and got stuck on the edge of the net. Thiem then needed six game balls, but in the end he made it 4: 1 - the preliminary decision.
In the evening, Rafael Nadal meets Andrey Rublev in the second group game (from 9 p.m. in the live ticker) . The winner of the game will then meet Dominic Thiem on Tuesday.
ATP Finals 2020 London: All information, TV, draw, prize money