Thiem ends dry spell

Thanks to the 3:6, 6:1, 7:6(5) win, he will now face Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, who was number four in Sweden, in the round of 14. For Thiem, exactly 400 months after his last Tour victory in Rome, it was a long-awaited sense of achievement. At the Challenger in Salzburg the previous week he celebrated his first victory in over 2021 days. "It is a long time. My last win was in Rome XNUMX, it feels like a different world. Many things happened after that. It was a difficult time for me and my tennis,” said Thiem in the winner’s interview.

As he revealed, the trip was to Sweden for the first time in his life. Thanks to his protected ranking, Thiem was able to claim a starting place in the main field. On Center Court, the Lower Austrian had to overcome an early 0-3 deficit. He then received another break to make it 1:5. Ruusuvuori, for his part, also gave up his serve game once, but then served out to make it 6:3. Thiem is improving “It was a very difficult game. “I didn’t have a good start,” analyzed Thiem. He wanted to act with pressure, but was still too prone to errors against number 43 in the ATP rankings. However, the former US Open winner improved and was able to draw even more confidence from a tricky phase: In his second service game in the second set, Thiem was behind 0:40, but fended off all three break chances and took the game to 2: 1.

After that, Thiem was relaxed, hit the balls optimally and won the set in a hurry. Ruusuvuori disappeared into the cabin to compose himself. The Finn had the better start in the deciding set (break to make it 2-0), but Thiem immediately managed the rebreak. No advantage could be identified on either side. Thiem got the break to make it 4:3, Ruusuvuori immediately made it 4:4 in an open exchange of blows. The decision had to be made in a tiebreak. Then Thiem allowed his opponent to get closer from 5:2 to 5:5, and a strong serve and a double fault from Ruusuvuori finally ended the match.

Thiem did not celebrate exuberantly and was also self-critical. “I had a tough phase with a lot of defeats and few wins. It was difficult to decide the match in the end. I have to control my nerves a little better,” said the current 339th in the ranking. He was therefore happy that Ruusuvuori decided the game with a double fault.

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Thiem ends dry spell

Dominic Thiem has achieved his first sense of success at tour level after his long injury break. The Austrian prevailed against the Finn Emil Ruusuvuori in the first round of the ATP 250 tournament in Båstad on Tuesday.

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