French Open: Dominic Thiem before the first round duel with Marin Cilic: "Much better than his ranking says"
Dominic Thiem starts today (second game after 11:00 a.m., here in the live ticker ) in the French Open. At the start, the newly crowned US Open winner will face Marin Cilic . Thiem is warned about the Croat.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Sep 28, 2020, 08:06 am
6: 2, 6: 2, 3: 6, 2: 2 15:40 it was at the beginning of the fourth set a good three weeks ago when Dominic Thiem and Marin Cilic faced each other for the last time. The Austrian was confronted with two breakballs, the Croatian comeback slowly but surely took shape. But Thiem acted bravely in this phase. looked for the way to the net and was lucky at the next point to find exactly the line with the backhand volley - and thus a little later the game, and finally also the match.
It was nuances that tipped the balance in favor of Dominic Thiem after the outstanding first two movements in New York City. He “missed” a fifth sentence, Thiem should explain with a little distance to the game. The match against the "champion" Cilic had turned out to be tough.
Thiem "set for a long fight"
Now Thiem and Cilic meet again, this time even in the first round. Markus Zoecke and Alexander Antonitsch also know one of the toughest openers in a Grand Slam tournament in the tennisnet podcast. Thiem is convinced that the Croatian can play much better than his position in the world rankings suggests: "He is only around 40th in the world rankings, but he plays much better than his ranking suggests," quoted Krone.at the world number three.
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The Croatian knows how to play a Grand Slam, six years ago he only took the title home with one. Thiem expects a correspondingly tough match on Monday: "In my last match against Cilic at the US Open, everything was very close, I'm prepared for a long fight."
No matches, but training with Djokovic
In addition to the difficult hurdle at the beginning , the constitution of the Austrian is one of those uncertainties that need to be answered today. The Austrian had taken a break after winning the US Open title and had traveled to Paris with no gaming experience. Coach Nicolas Massu confirms that the switch to sand is always an easy one for Thiem, but Alexander Zverev also needed seven games on Sunday to find his way into his game.
After all, the training is apparently made to measure for the Austrian, after units with Buddy Dennis Novak and the Italian youngster Jannik Sinner in his first days on the Bois de Bolougne, Thiem last struck up with Stan Wawrinka and with industry leader Novak Djokovic. "Everything positive," said the instructor Massu. "Dominic feels comfortable on this sand, you could see that from the beginning."
Here you can follow the match between Dominic Thiem and Marin Cilic in the live ticker!
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