ATP Madrid: Novak Djokovic beats Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals
World number one Novak Djokovic ended Dominic Thiem's successful run at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid. The Serb beat the Austrian 7: 6 (2) and 7: 6 (4). (Here you can read the LIVETICKER ).
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: May 11, 2019, 08:02 pm
by Nikolaus Fink from Madrid
"Djokovic is currently the best player in the world," said Dominic Thiem before his semi-final match against Novak Djokovic, the world's number one. The Austrian did not have to fear the industry leader, because the 25-year-old has played the best tennis of his career in recent weeks.
The 31-year-old Serb also noticed that. "Dominic probably plays the best tennis on clay," said Djokovic in Madrid. And in Caja Magica Thiem showed once why the 15-time Grand Slam winner came to this assessment. With his incredibly powerful game, Thiem immediately took command and made the first break 2-1.
Djokovic counters Thiem's dream start
As soon as the ball was in play, the Lichtenwörther had advantages. In order to break the rhythm, Thiem also skillfully used the stop from time to time - this means was not always successful, but helped to prevent Djokovic from getting into his game at first. Nicolas Massu, who cheered his protégé highly emotionally as usual, was happy for the first time.
But even the world number one showed tremendously strong tennis from the middle of the first round and was able to break to 3: 3 thanks to some outstanding point wins. This initially had some effect on Thiem: The previous year's finalist now made significantly more unintentional mistakes, but was able to ward off his opponent's next attack thanks to his great serve this week.
Oddities then played out in the Serb's next service game. Djokovic took too long on two consecutive points and consequently received two warnings for timeout. Therefore, he had to open Thiems with a second serve at the first breakball, but was able to fend it off shortly afterwards - Thiem served against losing the set.
Djokovic plays outstanding tie-break
The Lower Austrian accomplished this task with flying colors. However, it seemed that Djokovic had slight physical problems, as is often the case at high temperatures. The 31-year-old shook his arm again and again, made contact with his box and buried himself deep in his towel when he changed sides.
During the rally, Djokovic showed no physical deficits, but Thiem held up well and forced a tiebreak. In this, the world number one quickly turned a 0: 1 deficit into a 5: 1 lead thanks to some incredible balls. At that time, Thiem often made the wrong decision - primarily with the stop ball - and lost the quick decision 2-7.
However, Thiem seemed to be able to cope well with the setback and immediately developed a break chance in Djokovic's first service game. The 15-time major champion, who now almost no longer produced any errors, was able to defuse them. At breakball, Thiem abandoned his otherwise feared forehand, which didn't work as expected in this semi-final anyway.
Four breaks in the second set
Two games later Thiem gave another break opportunity, this time he put a backhand ball far out. Nevertheless, the Austrian was the better player in the second set at the beginning, just like in round one - when the score was 3-2, this circumstance should then turn into countable. Thiem used his fifth breakball of the set and Djokovic took the serve to 4-2 lead.
As so often in his career, the man from Belgrade replied immediately and managed the immediate rebreak thanks to strong returns and some mistakes made by his Austrian opponent. That gave Djokovic tailwind, who broke at 5: 5 thanks to a slight backhand error of the 25-year-old and served to win the match.
But Thiem did not get down and earned a quick 0:40. Djokovic gave the 25-year-old the rebreak with a double fault on the second breakball - again a tie break had to decide. Like the rest of the round, this was balanced before the world number one took a 5-3 lead thanks to a double mistake by Thiem. Djokovic then got two match balls.
Already after 2:22 hours he was able to convert the first to 7: 6 (2) and 7: 6 (4) success and thus fix his first final entry since the Australian Open. In the final, the Serb will face Rafael Nadal or Stefanos Tsitsipas on Sunday.