Thiem Takes Stock After Madrid: 'I Think I'm On The Right Track'
Third seed Dominic Thiem bowed out to Alexander Zverev in the Mutua Madrid Open semi-finals, but the Austrian is still taking his week in the Spanish capital as a win.
Thiem was competing in his first tournament since the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in March after taking time away from the Tour to ‘recharge’.
“It was a way better result than I expected,” Thiem said in his post-match press conference. “Playing-wise and physically-wise, I expected to be in a decent shape. But, of course, there are still many things to improve just to keep all intensity for all the week, day in, day out.
“Of course, some of the strokes, they need a little improvement. But I’m very optimistic that every week I’m playing now it’s going to improve. Especially for the confidence it was important to get a great result here. I’m happy that I think I’m on the right track.”
Before the tournament, Thiem opened up about needing a mental break following the euphoric high of winning his first major title at the US Open last year (d. Zverev). For Thiem, the inevitable letdown didn’t come right away; he continued to find success and went on to reach the Nitto ATP Finals championship match (l. Medvedev) to close out the season.
But after recording back-to-back early exits in Doha and Dubai, Thiem knew it was time for a break.
“I think the pandemic played a little part of it definitely because I think it’s mentally little bit more demanding to be in a bubble, to play in front of empty seats,” he explained. “But the main reason was that I won the first major [US Open], that I reached basically my lifetime goal. So, of course, it’s tough to just continue like before.
“That was the main reason, I just had to think about it, regroup myself. That took a little bit of time.”
The time away from the courts seemed to have been just what Thiem needed. The 2017 and 2018 Madrid finalist defeated Marcos Giron, Alex de Minaur and John Isner on the way to his first semi-final of the year.
“In general I’m super happy with the week,” Thiem said. “I would have never expected to be in the semi-finals, to play in the semi-finals [against] a player like [Zverev]. I cannot complain about anything.
“Of course, there are many things to improve for next week and then for the weeks after, as well. Just try to get to Rome, get some good practices in there, then hopefully play even better than here in Madrid.”
The World No. 4 will be back in action in Rome for the Internazionali BNL d’Italia before heading to Roland-Garros, where he reached back-to-back Grand Slam finals in 2017-18.