ATP Shanghai: Dominic Thiem opens against favorite opponents
Dominic Thiem faces Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament. The Spaniard is one of the Austrian's absolute favorite opponents.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: Oct 08, 2019, 07:50 am
After his triumph at the ATP 500 event in Beijing, Dominic Thiem is already in Shanghai this week. Lichtenwörther, who again qualified for the ATP Finals due to the tournament victory in the Chinese capital, is already in Shanghai and also wants to attack at the penultimate ATP Masters 1000 event of the year.
"My full focus is already on Shanghai," said Thiem at the final press conference in Beijing. "I cannot buy anything from the great success here next week. I have to start from scratch," continued the 26-year-old.
Faster court as a challenge
In particular, court speed poses a major challenge for Thiem: If the game was played on a rather slow hard court in Beijing, the court in Shanghai is one of the fastest of the year. Andy Murray, for example, was almost doomed - the Scotsman clearly lost the first set against Juan Ignacio Londero, but ultimately won his first round game. After the encounter, he emphasized that it was particularly difficult for him to switch from Beijing to Shanghai in the first round due to the much faster space.
Thiem can certainly be satisfied with his draw. The Lichtenwörther meets Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round after a walk-through. The Spaniard, who had to fight through the qualification in Shanghai, beat the Chinese Ze Zhang in three contested sets at the start.
So far, Thiem has had good experiences with the 28-year-old. In the official Head to Head of the ATP, the fifth place in the world rankings is 5: 0, only at a Challenger event in Como six years ago has the Spaniard been able to beat the Austrian so far. Only against Adrian Mannarino and Gilles Simon can Thiem have a better record.
Not yet a round of 16 in Shanghai
Nevertheless, the 15-time ATP title holder must be warned of his second-round opponent. Carreno Busta won the title in Chengdu just over two weeks ago and, after a disappointing start to the season, was recently able to reestablish himself in the expanded world top.
After "one of the best performances of his career" in the Beijing final against Stefanos Tsitsipas, Thiem starts confidently in Shanghai. "I am full of confidence and play well," said the Austrian. So far, however, things haven't gone as planned in Shanghai. With four appearances, Thiem never got past the second round.