Thiem's 7: Andrey Rublev defeats Dominic Thiem in the final
Andrey Rublev won the invitation tournament Thiem's 7 in Kitzbühel. The Russian defeated host Dominic Thiem 6-2, 5-7 and 10-8 in the final
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jul 11, 2020, 08:26 pm
Nothing came of the next, albeit "unofficial", home win of Dominic Thiem: After the Austrian number one won the ATP tournaments in Kitzbühel and Vienna last year, he drew "Thiem's" in the final of his invitation tournament 7 "against Andrey Rublev just under the short. In the group stage, Thiem had defeated the Russian in two sets. However, Rublev won the final with 6: 2, 5: 7 and 10: 8.
After four days of wonderful summer weather, a storm front had moved over Kitzbühel on Friday afternoon, interrupting the semi-final game between Rublev and Matteo Berrettini at the beginning of the second set. Rublev decided to continue in the tie-break and came back to the Kitzbüheler Center Court 45 minutes after the match with enough momentum.
Thiem quickly back with breaks
After losing the first set 2-6, Thiem was also quickly behind with a break in round two. But Thiem equalized to 2: 2, a few moments later missed several chances with serve Rublev to 4: 2. At this point, the rain had started to drop a bit, but the players were not going to get out of it for the time being - after all, a check in the amount of EUR 100,000 was available for the winner.
The fact that Andrey Rublev was happy to receive this check in the end was not only due to the higher efficiency of the Russian, who used the breakball to make it 4: 3. After that, the groundsmen had to apply fresh sand again, the rain was getting stronger. The final was interrupted in the eighth game. It didn't start until 7:30 p.m. local time, after a little more than two hours break. And Thiem immediately went into full swing, taking his fifth chance to rebreak.
Then Dominic Thiem showed himself defensively at his best, mercilessly exploiting small weaknesses and larger gifts from his opponent to 7: 5.
Rublev made the first mini-break in the match tie break, and the sides were changed at 4-2. Thiem came back 3: 4. Next change at 7: 5 for Rublev. Then the Russian put on 9: 6 - and the third match point was also for Andrey Rublev.