Thiem's 7 - Ready to rumble
The guests are already present in full - and the host is in top form. Dominic Thiem is playing today against Casper Ruud , Jan-Lennard Struff and Andrey Rublev will play the opening match at Thiem's 7 (live from 1pm on ServusTV).
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jul 07, 2020, 08:58 am
By Jens Huiber from Kitzbühel
If Dominic Thiem has shown himself sleeveless during the training in Kitzbühel in the past few days, it may well be due to the fact that Thiem didn't just spend the tennis-free time in front of the Play Station. Rather, the Austrian number one is sporting a biceps, which asymptotically approaches the range of Rafael Nadal in points. The direct comparison turns out, the Spaniard was on the list of players that Thiem would have liked to greet in the coming days - but Nadal is said to have devoted more attention to his new catamaran than intensive training work on the court in the last week.
A lot is different at Thiem's 7 than just a year ago at the Generali Open, not only when it comes to rewarding the participants: there is good money to be made, points for the ATP world rankings are not distributed. Thiem trained with Jan-Lennard Struff on Sunday and replaced Casper Ruud and Dennis Novak around midday on the Kitzbüheler Center Court. While Thiem won the Generali Austrian Pro Series after a total of eleven games, Struff left his place to a successor after the preliminary round.
Thiem trains with struff
Struff looks as fit as Thiem, he came to Kitzbühel with coach Carsten Arriens and Physio Uwe Liedtke. The training pace is extremely high, but it also demands material sacrifices. Hardly half an hour has passed since there are already five strings gone, two with Thiem, three with Struff. Who takes over the clothing service cannot be seen with the naked eye, the experimental arrangement at Thiem's 7 is also a completely new logistical one.
So the players are accommodated in the actual press center, but the changes should apparently take place on the fly, personal hygiene is not provided on site. The journalists, in turn, share separées that are set up in a corona-conform manner. The arrangement of the spectators speaks for itself, seats that cannot be occupied are marked with a red cross. A total of 500 tickets are available per session, twice as many as there were people at the German Cup final on Saturday in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. But even there was a little background noise.
# IMG2 #
Nicolas Massu back in the Thiem team
The weather forecast is appealing, naturally there is always a little question mark in Kitzbühel behind the willingness to rain. The announced bad weather front dropped by Monday afternoon in the Tyrolean lowlands, the meteorologists are confident that they will have said goodbye in time for the start of the game on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Dominic Thiem meets Casper Ruud in the second game of the day, and Andrey Rublev and Jan-Lennard Struff will kick off the match (all live on ServusTV).
The fact that Thiem will present his biceps sleeveless is almost impossible, so the sponsors of the current number three in the world would have no joy. However, team Thiem is delighted elsewhere: In Kitzbühel, in addition to father Wolfgang and physio Alex Stober, coach Nicolas Massu will be at the start again. The Chilean, Olympic champion in 2004 and the same year champion in Kitzbühel, has only been able to influence his protégé by telephone in recent months. After a literal world tour with stops in Miami and Vienna, Massu finally arrived in Kitzbühel happily. Just in time for the start of the tournament. Too late for the cranberry cam dinner on Friday evening at the Rohrer Alm, the first culinary highlight of the Thiem Festival in Kitzbühel.