Thiem Works His Way Into Barcelona QFs
Thiem Works His Way Into Barcelona QFs
Nadal, Dimitrov also feature on day four
Austria’s Dominic Thiem recorded his 12th win in 15 clay-court matches on Thursday for a place in the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell quarter-finals.
The third seed and last year’s finalist, one of the best performers in clay-courts matches over the past two years, didn’t have things all his own way in a 7-6(5), 6-2 victory over Slovakian lucky loser Jozef Kovalik in one hour and 44 minutes.
Thiem, with a 21-5 on the season, which includes his ninth ATP World Tour crown at the Argentina Open (d. Bedene), will now challenge #NextGenATP Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas or No. 10 seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.
World No. 146 Kovalik broke for a 3-2 lead, but Thiem won the next three games. Thiem won five of the first six points in the tie-break, closing out on his fourth set point opportunity. Thiem carried the momentum into the second set, including service breaks in the first, fifth and seventh games.
World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, the 10-time champion, takes on fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez later today, while second-seeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov meets Malek Jaziri of Tunisia.
