Dominic Thiem creates tennis euphoria in Austria
Dominic Thiem's recent successes on the ATP tour have sparked a new level of tennis euphoria in his home country. The 25-year-old ensures that tennis in Austria suddenly not only interests the masses, many also resort to the racket themselves.
by Lukas Zahrer
last edit:
Apr 30, 2019, 07:25 pm
On Sunday afternoon, the current number five in the world won the biggest clay court title of his career with his tournament victory at the ATP 500 event in Barcelona. In addition to the winner's check of 503,015 euros, Thiem scored 500 points for the ATP ranking. With currently 5,085 points, the 25-year-old has more points than ever in his career.
"The tournament win means a lot to me. It is a huge thing to win the tournament when I see which tennis giants have won here. I am happy that I am now second Austrian in the list of winners," said Thiem, who is Thomas Pattern equalized in the ServusTV interview.
It was already Thiem's second tournament victory in 2019 after the spectacular triumph in Indian Wells. Only Roger Federer was also able to win two titles in the current season. Thiem has now climbed to fourth place in the Race to London.
Thiem, who has been in the top 10 in the world for almost three years now, has caused a new level of tennis excitement in Austria in recent years, but especially in recent weeks. This is particularly evident from three key figures.
ServusTV with top ratings at Thiem-Triumph
Tournaments of the ATP tour can be seen on free TV for the first time in a long time in Austria. In cooperation with Sky, ServusTV secured the broadcasting rights for a total of 15 men's matches for the 2019 season. There should be eleven games with Dominic Thiem's participation. The private broadcaster based in Salzburg is also the new host broadcaster for the Generali Open in Kitzbühel until 2020.
"We are very pleased that we can once again offer fans in Austria top tennis with Dominic Thiem. We will exclusively accompany Austria's number one on the way to its next Grand Slam tournament in Paris on free TV," said ServusTV sports director Christian Nehiba who commented on the matches together with expert Alexander Antonitsch.
After a few weeks of cooperation, it is clear: the calculation works out perfectly. The broadcasts from Barcelona watched the semi-final and the final in the top 570,000 people on TV, the enthusiasm for Thiem gave the private broadcaster top ratings.
But tennis fans are also increasingly reporting on TV live images. "Our goal is to make tennis available to fans everywhere and on different channels," says Antonitsch, publisher of tennisnet.com. The articles on the tournament in Barcelona received over 1.2 million hits on the tennis portal via web, app and social media.
Thiem euphoria: Austrians once again use a tennis racket
Thanks to Thiem there is more talk about tennis in Austria. But not only that: his successes ensure that more and more people become active and hit a few balls themselves.
This can be confirmed by Andreas Munk, founder of eTennis . With its platform, Munk offers contemporary solutions for booking tennis courts in six countries. “Digitization has now reached a lot of clubs. Everyone has the same wishes and goals: Reserve tennis courts comfortably from the office or at home - directly on the smartphone, administration of the club and public relations, ”says Munk, who also offers solutions for access control with club cards.
ETennis recently broke the sound barrier of a million tennis lessons booked (try it now for free! ).
"Coupled with ongoing development and the support of the eTennis clubs, which provide us with new ideas and suggestions, we are well on the way to becoming the standard for the digitization of tennis clubs."
Everyone is talking about tennis, and the season in Austria has only just begun. However, people are again significantly more active on the court.