Generali Austrian Pro Series: Dominic Thiem is subject to Sebastian Ofner
Dominic Thiem stretched in vain in the placement game of the second group phase at the Generali Austrian Open: The number three in the ATP world rankings lost to Sebastian Ofner 6: 7 (4), 7: 6 (2) and 4: 6.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jun 08, 2020, 03:09 pm
If going down, then at least with flying flags: Sebastian Ofner may have thought that before his match against Dominic Thiem. In any case, the Styrian tried to stand up to the favored Thiem from the start, and did so with his forehand - the much weaker side of Ofner for years. And so Thiem managed to equalize the break to 4: 4, but finally had to give up 4: 7 in the tie-break.
It was Thiem's third set loss in the course of the event, before that Sandro Kopp and Jurij Rodionov had already managed to clear a passage from the current number three world. In contrast to Kopp and Rodionov, Ofner remained stable and annoyed the favorite in the second act. Thiem took the first chance to break and went 3-2 up. This time it was Ofner who turned 4: 4 with the re-break - against a Dominic Thiem, whose resentment over his own performance seemed to increase almost every minute.
Opener with early break against Thiem in set three
In the tenth game of the second set, Ofner was only two points away from winning the match, Thiem went all-in with his second serve, managed the 5: 5 with a magic stop. This time, too, a tie-break had to be used to make decisions, Thiem was in the lead from the start, allowing only two counter points.
The last set started with Ofner breaking to zero. And that kept the number 163 in the ATP world ranking at 5: 3. Thiem then wanted to see how his opponent served. And the outsider actually succeeded, who used his second match ball with a little support from the net.