It’s over! For Dominic Thiem, the French Open 2022 was a short adventure. The world number 194. just can’t get going after his injury break. The 28-year-old from Lichtenwörther, who triumphed at the US Open in 2020, had to admit defeat to the Bolivian Hugo Dellien, who is 84th in the ATP ranking, 3: 6, 2: 6 and 4: 6 in the first round .
Thiem is just a shadow of himself and without a win since May 12, 2021. At that time he defeated Marton Fucsovics in Rome 3:6, 7;6 (5), 6:0. The worm has been inside since then, not only because of the wrist injury that the two-time French Open finalist (2018, 2019) sustained on June 22, 2021 in Mallorca.
The rebuff against Dellien was the eleventh defeat en suite, Thiem will fall out of the top 350 in the world on June 13 because he will lose the 180 points from the Paris quarter-finals in 2020 (knockout against Diego Schwartzmann / Arg).
This is frustrating. Thiem, who also failed in five sets in the first round at Roland Garros a year ago to Pablo Andujar (Esp), will now have to bake smaller rolls. The organizers of the clay court challenger in Perugia, which starts at the beginning of June, have given the former world number three a wild card. Thiem absolutely needs wins to boost his confidence.
Thiem didn’t make a single break
The bookmakers had given the Lower Austrian a 50:50 chance before the match against Dellien. But there was no question of a balanced game. The Bolivian clay court specialist plays solid tennis, unforced errors are rare.
In contrast to Thiem, who had dominated one or the other rally, but had repeatedly got out of the driver’s seat with balls thrown in too short. At Thiem there is sand in the gearbox. In his heyday, the 17-time ATP tournament winner would have dominated such an opponent.
But the forehand is not stable enough, the scatter in the shots is too large, Thiem is very far behind the baseline and cannot exert the pressure he needs for his game. That was more of a step backwards than a step forward, which is why the question of coaching arises. Can Nicolas Massu bring his protégé back into shape? There definitely has to be more.
On Sunday, Thiem didn’t manage a single break, although he had emotional support on the Court Simonne-Mathieu in the Botanical Garden, which only opened in 2019. The French audience tried to whip the former “Dominator” forward with Allez Thiem calls. Vain.
The approximately 2,500 fans in the 5,000-seat, pretty stadium (behind a glass facade) ultimately got to see a rather one-sided match. In the first set, Thiem gave up his service to make it 1: 3, the second round was a clear affair with two breaks in favor of Dellien. In the third set, too, Thiem was permanently behind after losing serve to make it 0-1.
At 1:10 p.m. or after 2:01 hours, the curtain fell. Thiem struggles with himself, it hurts extremely.
Source: Nachrichten
