Thiem: "I would welcome a match tie break in the third set!"
Another week of exhibition tennis, a new surface, another final. So far, the previous summary for Dominic Thiem at bett1ACES in Berlin.
by Florian Heer
last edit: Jul 14, 2020, 09:29 pm
By Florian Heer from Berlin
The 26-year-old Austrian defeated young Italian star Jannik Sinner 6-3, 7-6 (5) in his lawn debut this season on a sunny Tuesday. In his subsequent press conference in the catacombs of the Steffi Graf stadium, Thiem also appeared visibly satisfied.
"I am very happy with my performance today," said the current number 3 in the ATP world rankings. “My serve worked very well today, which is very important on this surface. I got some aces and service winners. ”
Challenge: scoring formats
Thiem was also surprised to have quickly adapted to the new conditions, as the Austrian was still on sand at the weekend at his home tournament at Kitzbühel. After participating in the Universal Tennis Showdown at the Mouratoglou Academy in Sophia Antipolis and the THIEMs7 event, the protégé of Nicolas Massu is always able to adapt to new game systems at the various exhibition tournaments.
"I still prefer the common scoring format. Though I would welcome a match tie break in the third set. This format could also be built in from time to time in the early rounds of the tour, as it creates a lot of excitement for the audience. ”Overall, Thiem was able to gain a lot of positive results from the sometimes wild experiments in the show fights, but slowed down in the same breath: "On the regular tour, you should leave it as it is."
Berrettini in the final
With or without a match-tie break in the third set, Thiem will next compete against Italian Matteo Berrettini, who beat Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut 4-6, 6-3, 10-6 in the second semi-final.
"It will be a very special match," said Thiem. “A final on grass is not an everyday occurrence and of course I want to win it. However, I think Matteo will be the favorite. He won the ATP tournament in Stuttgart last year and played very well in Wimbledon. An advantage for me could be that he has played many tournaments in the past few days. Maybe he's a little tired. "
The men's final, originally scheduled for the afternoon, will start at 12 p.m. due to the weather. According to the forecast, a rainy Wednesday is expected in Berlin-Grunewald.