Thiem did not reward himself for catching up

The 29-year-old from Lower Austria has also lost the fifth first-round match in a Grand Slam tournament in a row.

His last win at this level was a five-set win over Nick Kyrgios in January 2021. At that time he had turned a 0-2 set deficit to victory, a feat he did not succeed in Paris this time.

The end was sobering for Thiem, as his new coach Benjamin Ebrahimzadeh wanted to get him “on track” by the French Open. But despite very intensive training sessions in the past few months, the four-time major finalist and US Open winner 2020 is still clearly missing compared to previous flights of fancy.

False start by Thiem

That was especially the case in the first two sets and then in the fifth set. Even if the audience, who was standing quite one-sidedly behind Thiem, on the 1,100-seat side court 6 gratefully cheered every great point Thiem made and the ex-world number three still has a standing with his fans: In the end it was not enough.

While Cachin started the match with a zero serve game, a double fault and a forehand fault gave the South American the first break chance. And this “utilized” Thiem with the next cracking forehand. Thiem managed the rebreak to make it 2: 3 and it seemed as if he had shaken off the initial pressure. But his game lacked variation for a long time, too many shots couldn’t hurt his constant opponent. As a consequence, he had to give up the serve again at the first breakball to make it 3:5 and set one was over after 33 minutes. 5 winners, 17 unforced errors says a lot about Thiem’s ​​performance.

Set two wasn’t much better with six winners and 13 unforced errors. Breaks to 0: 1 and 2: 5 sealed the rapid 0: 2 set deficit of the slightly favored Lower Austrian. Cachin has now worked his way up to 64th place, but Thiem could have been expected to make the necessary increase to major level and “best of five”. Especially since those around him repeatedly reported excellent training.

Thiem reared up in the third set

In the third set, Thiem, who had left the field after two sets, reared up and after 88 minutes he suddenly made the break to make it 3-1. When he then made it 4:1, you were already thinking about winning the set. But the 17-time ATP tournament winner gave up the lead again, Cachin made the rebreak to 3: 4 and then 4: 4. At 5: 4, Thiem found a set ball after Cachin’s double error, but messed it up with a forehand error.

In the hard-fought eleventh game, Thiem fended off no fewer than five breakballs after a ball to make it 6: 5, but Cachin used the sixth. Thiem fought for the immediate rebreak shortly before the end and saved himself in the tie-break. “Dominic chants” on Court 6 were the result. And the fans got their extension, Thiem certainly won the tie-break 7: 1 and shortened to 1: 2 sets after 2:21 hours.

In set four, things quickly looked good for Thiem after breaks to 2: 1 and 4: 1. At 5:2, however, he missed the first set ball and conceded the break and at 5:3, serve Cachin three more. Thiem used the fifth set ball after 3:12 hours to enter the decisive fifth round.

After losing service to 0:2, he quickly fell 0:3 behind. Thiem answered another break to 1: 5 to zero for Cachin against the South American with a rebreak – also to zero. It was the last gasp. Cachin broke Thiem to 6: 2.

The match in the live ticker: