Thomas Muster on the Thiem separation: "Was not fired after 16 days"
In an interview, Thomas Muster clarified his statements about the end of the collaboration with Dominic Thiem . The 52-year-old continues to stand by his statements and explained that the engagement with Austria's currently best tennis player has been going on for longer than is known to the public.
by Lukas Zahrer
last edit: Mar 29, 2020, 05:59 pm
"After the request of the Thiem family, I've been pulling the strings in the background since September 2019," said the press on Sunday . "So I wasn't fired after 16 days, as could be read. The collaboration was initially secret, so as not to generate any media theater, especially not before the home tournament in Vienna in October."
In the Wiener Stadthalle, Thiem won the ATP 500 tournament for the first time, completing the "Austrian Slam" in 2019 after winning the tournament in Kitzbühel. A few weeks later, after victories over Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, he reached the final at the ATP Finals in London. In January he made it to the Australian Open in his first grand slam final on hard court.
"A badly prepared player would never have been able to do this," said Muster, who served as Team Austria's captain at the ATP Cup in early January, about Thiem's performance.
Muster: "In my choice of words I didn't mistake myself"
After the separation of Thiem and Muster during the Australian Open, the Styrian expressed himself cryptically with a metaphor about the reasons for the split . "There are houses with beautiful, indeed with wonderful facades. But you very rarely know who lives inside," Muster told Eurosport at the time.
"I stand by what I said, I didn't go wrong in my choice of words," said Muster about two months later. "Put in good German: You just can't look into anyone."
In the days after the end, however, the coverage of reports was faulty, Muster "had read 99 percent nonsense about it", because the collaboration had taken a long time.