Dominic Thiem is allowed to unpack the fine blade under Nicolas Massu
Dominic Thiem made his tennis a little more variable in the time after Günter Bresnik - to my own delight.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Jan 11, 2021, 12:14 pm
The separation between Dominic Thiem and Günter Bresnik came as a surprise at the beginning of 2019 and shocked many fans. Especially since there were nasty swipes afterwards and in the end you even had to fight in court. At least there currently seems to be willingness to talk.
Why the separation at all, after all, it was successful between Thiem and Bresnik? Thiem wanted more freedom, so it was heard, and also playfully the Lichtenwörther apparently wanted to develop more freely again. Because the tennis "game" was probably neglected under Bresnik. "Nico gave me a lot more freedom right from the start," said Thiem about Bresnik's successor Nicolas Massu in the current issue of ZEIT . The "tough" Bresnik school of performing almost all punches extremely aggressively was obviously too much for Thiem in the end. Or too little. "At some point all the joy of playing was gone," he says today.
And indeed: Even if Thiem still has an enormous arm pull, the slice has increasingly found its way into his repertoire, which in turn often paves the way for him to plow through again on a slow counterattack by the opponent.
Thiem: "I like it harmonious"
That the story of Thiem and Bresnik can be filled with positive thoughts at some point is not only hoped by the followers - Thiem owes too much to his discoverer and long-time mentor, the relationship between the two of them, including the one with the Thiem family, was too intimate. Papa Wolfgang once left his own tennis school and started working as a coach at Bresnik, and the two became good friends. Will there ever be a happy ending? Harmony friend Thiem would certainly want it.
"I like it harmonious," said Thiem in the ZEIT - he was also happy to be able to live exclusively with bat and ball. "I am lucky that I play tennis because it's a sport where you don't have to hurt anyone."