ATP Finals London: Dominic Thiem - "The best match of my career"
Dominic Thiem has added yet another highlight to the semifinal of the ATP Finals of the best season of his career. The victim was as in Roland Garros Novak Djokovic.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Nov 13, 2019, 01:33 am
By Jens Huiber from London
In "Asterix at the Spaniards" there is a scene right at the beginning, in which Julius Caesar attacks a Roman legionnaire on the earlobe. The actually defeated Iberians observe this, as the gesture points out: Caesar gives the soldier an ear, because he had defeated himself well. Novak Djokovic has also given an ear to the crowd in the nearly full O2 Arena on Tuesday night - but not half as pleased as the great strategist Gaius Julius: When he forced a break ball in the sixth game of the first set after a fabulous rally, put the Serb his right hand behind the ear, invited the fans to cheer.
Over the entire 2:47 hours of playing this memorable game, the "best of his career," as Thiem said after the match, however, the greater jubilation was always the Austrians - perhaps because the British tennis fans like to support the outsiders. Perhaps also because numerous Austrian followers had gathered in the hall. Definitely, however, because Dominic Thiem did a fantastic job, scoring no less than 51 strokes against the best defensive player in the world. And so incidentally the first-time entry into the semi-finals of the season final tournament of ATP made clear.
Thiem wins two instant classics
Although Dominic Thiem is still in the balance sheet against Novak Djokovic with 4: 6 victories behind. However, the last two matches must have wreaked havoc in the perfectionist nature of the world ranking second: First, there was the defeat at the French Open, which stretched over two days and was fixed after a nerve-racking fifth set. And then just this bankruptcy in London, in which the man from Belgrade caught up twice a break back in the third set, in the tiebreak already led 4-1, fended off a match point as a backstab.
atpfinalsskytext2
Then, however, the hall blew up - as it did seconds before, when Thiem's serve hit the match by a maximum of one millimeter next to the center line. A comparatively quick forehand error from Djokovic then ended the game.
Djokovic now with final against Federer
Djokovic, who also lost 200 important points for the year-end ranking in the ATP world rankings with this defeat, is proving to be a big loser. "I just have to take my hat off and congratulate him because he just played a great match. In some situations he was just amazing, he literally pounded on the ball as hard as he could. And the balls landed in the field. "For Djokovic that means a final in London against Roger Federer - on Thursday, however, it will go to the semi-finals.
Thiem held his press conference in a slightly occupied voice - which he had been dragging on during the last days. There is no improvement in sight, on the other hand he knows that it goes to London on vacation. So he'll get everything out of himself, even though he does not want to spend nearly three hours pumping through on Matteo Berrettini (live on Sky, in Austria on ServusTV and in our live ticker) on Thursday at 3 pm CET. The fact that Thiem had been in between for a while, was due to the circumstances: He would of course have realized that he had lost opportunities. But at the next point he had been at peace with himself again. So pure that Novak Djokovic gave him, at least verbally, an ear.