Ultimate Tennis Showdown: Thiem lost to Gasquet, today against Tsitispas
Dominic Thiem suffered a defeat in his first match at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown. The Austrian lost 1: 3 against Richard Gasquet.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jun 21, 2020, 07:26 am
Richard Gasquet is generally not one of Dominic Thiem's favorite opponents (the Frenchman leads the ATP tour with 2-1 victories). In addition, the Frenchman could look back on two days of competition before the Saturday meeting at the Ultimate Tennis Challenge in the academy of Patrick Mouratoglou - and was therefore more familiar with the extraordinary rules than his Austrian opponent. Especially when it comes to using the individual playing cards.
Mouratoglou plays in four quarters of ten minutes each, each point is counted. As special gimmicks, the participants can use one of four playing cards at any time - for example, it can be required that the opponent must score his point with a maximum of three strokes. Experience that Gasquet had already gathered. The veteran, at the start in Nice as "The Virtuoso", won 3-1 (16:10, 15:12, 16:12, 14:17).
Thiem, who is accompanied and coached by father Wolfgang, meets Stefanos Tsitsipas late in the evening (10:15 p.m.), who is the only player to have won all three matches so far. "The Greek God" beat Dustin Brown 3-1 on Saturday (12:14, 18:13, 16:11, 15:10). Remarkable: Oldie Feliciano Lopez had no problems at all against Matteo Berrettini - and is in second place in the current ranking.
Playing in the Mouratoglou Academy on hard court - for Thiem, who was on the sand both at the Generali Austrian Pro Series and during his appearances on the Adria Tour by Novak Djokovic in Belgrade, a challenging change, of course. The match against Tsitsipas can be followed on the event's official streaming website.