Dominic Thiem on headlines after Ibbou video: "That was unfair"
Dominic Thiemspoke to the French L'Équipe about Ines Ibbou's sensational video.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: May 20, 2020, 11:38 am
Ibbou had addressed Thiem in an open video and criticized his comments on the originally planned aid fund for poorly placed players. His words were disrespectful, says Ibbou, who has fought in Algeria without the support of the association in the world tennis rankings and has to fight for every penny.
Thiem had previously said that he had played on the ITF tour for two years and knew that some players would not behave professionally. "I would not see why I should give such people money," said Thiem in an interview with the Kronen-Zeitung . "I prefer to donate to people or institutions that really need it."
While some Thiem jumped aside, he also received harsh criticism. Now Thiem made it clear where the problem was - namely, that "nobody looked at the entire interview that I gave." All the newspapers and magazines had made headlines about it, "that was unfair," said the Lichtenwörther. "If people had read everything, it would not have been so large."
Already after the crown interview, Thiem had commented accordingly and explained that some things had come across too hard, but that he did not want to move away from the essence of his statements.
Thiem supports in Austria
In the L´Équipe he explained again that he hadn't spoken of "all" players. "There are many players who deserve to be supported who do their best." But he wanted to decide who to help.
So Thiem stayed true to his creed. "If you want to be successful, you have to do everything for it, 100 percent." He played on the Future Tour for two years, but there were also players who had been there for ten years and who didn't behave like professionals who didn't have a professional attitude. "Not all of them. But some."
He himself supports some young players in Austria. "I didn't talk about it because I don't do it for my image, but because they deserve it and I want it."
"Dominic does a lot," ex-professional Alexander Antonitsch had recently told derstandard.de . "Even before Corona he promoted one of the best young players in Austria (Marko Andrejic, editor's note) . Very few people know that, nobody talks about it."