Thiem Completes Opening Win In New York

Dominic Thiem, one of the hardest working players on the ATP World Tour, completed his rain-interrupted first-round encounter against wild card Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 in one hour and 49 minutes on Wednesday at the US Open. The pair’s first meeting restarted on Grandstand with Thiem leading 1-0 in the third set.

The sixth-seeded Austrian won 10 straight games from a 0-1 deficit in the second set against his 18-year-old Australian opponent and will next face Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis or #NextGenATP American Taylor Fritz in the second round.

“Sets two and three were really decent, and the biggest thing I have to do now is probably to just continue like this, because the first set was not good,” said Thiem. “It was [a] pretty nervous start, but then it really got better. I [will] try to start off tomorrow like I finished yesterday and today.”

Thiem, contesting his 21st tournament of the season, has posted a 42-19 match record in 2017. Over the next fortnight, he will be hoping to better his US Open fourth-round runs in 2014 (l. to Berdych) and 2016 (l. to del Potro), and also further improve his chances of qualifying for the second straight year to the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held from 7-11 November at The O2 in London.

Later in the day, Czech No. 15 seed Tomas Berdych extended his perfect record (4-0) against American Ryan Harrison with a 6-4, 6-2, 7-6(4) victory for a place in the second round. Berdych, the 2012 semi-finalist, recovered from a 0-3 deficit in the first set and saved one set point 5-6 in the third set, when Harrison served at 40/30. He now challenges Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov or Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany.