Dominic Thiem on first Federer match: "Then he came out and destroyed me"
Dominic Thiem on the first matches against Federer, Nadal and Djokovic - and the time after the "Big Three".
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Nov 08, 2021, 10:28 pm
Dominic Thiem's record against Roger Federer is impressive: Lichtenwörther leads 5 to 2 against the 20-time Grand Slam champ, even if you have to restrict. Federer already had match points in two games, and he was partly beaten.
Thiem remembers the first match against the Swiss very well, also or precisely because it was a rebuff there. At the beginning of the 2016 season it was in the semifinal in Brisbane, and Federer easily won 6: 1, 6: 4. “He was a little sick this week, so I was expecting something,” reflected Thiem in the podcast Simply lop . "And then he came out and destroyed me, made me look really bad. So I thought: Okay, it's not that different from TV."
In the same year in Rome (on clay) and Stuttgart (on grass) Thiem then won, "but to be fair, you have to say: He had back problems, wasn't 100 percent, and then the season ended." injured the knee at the Australian Open and returned to the tour pretty quickly, but both the knee and back were stuck at the time. The Swiss ended his season in July and didn't come back until 2017.
In 2019 Thiem won again, in the final of Indian Wells, his breakthrough on hard court.
It is always a dream to play against Federer, enthused Thiem. "I hope that there will be at least a duel next year." Federer is currently out of action again, had to undergo another operation on his right knee after the Wimbledon tournament , after already two operations in 2020.
Thiem against "Big Three": "Legends aura"
Thiem remembered the first duels against the really big ones anyway, especially the first matches were very difficult. “You know them from television, you worship them, you want to go where they are. And suddenly you're facing them. "Federer, Nadal and Djokovic would also exude" an aura of legend "," you don't just have to defeat them playfully, you also have to defeat them in a playful way. It's really difficult the first time. "
Thiem about time after Federer and Co .: "Our job to bind fans to us"
Oh yes: And when the three of them finish their careers, what's next in world tennis? Can the young savages replace them? "Most of the fans, at least half of them, are fans of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic. That is our job: that we play so well and follow in their footsteps so well that the people who follow tennis because of the three stick with it. That we bind their fans to us. "
The very young could also play a major role in this. Thiem sees Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz in particular at the forefront. Both are great, and Sinner as a South Tyrolean "barely not an Austrian."