Thiem Breaks Through Against Verdasco In Vienna

Dominic Thiem beat Spain’s Fernando Verdasco for the first time in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series to reach his third Erste Bank Open quarter-final on Thursday.

The top-seeded Austrian benefitted from more home support in his comeback 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Verdasco, who had beaten Thiem all four times they had played, including earlier this year on clay in Rome. Thiem is through to his 11^th quarter-final of the season and 49^th since 2016, which is best on Tour.

Most Quarter-finals In Past Four Years

The World No. 5 was broken in his opening service game. But he won 97 per cent of his service points (36/37) in the second and third sets to win his 42^nd match of the season. The Nitto ATP Finals qualifier will next meet Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta in the quarter-finals.

Russian Andrey Rublev avenged his 2017 Next Gen ATP Finals title match defeat to South Korea’s Hyeon Chung 6-4, 6-2. Rublev saved the only break point he faced and will next meet Nitto ATP Finals hopeful Matteo Berrettini of Italy.

Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman also clinched a quarter-final spot, ousting American Sam Querrey 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(5) despite Querrey’s 23 aces. Schwartzman will face second seed Karen Khachanov. Aljaz Bedene beat Gilles Simon 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 and will face Gael Monfils, who gained revenge against #NextGenATP Italian Jannik Sinner with a 6-3, 7-6(8). 

Sinner beat Monfils last week en route to the European Open semi-finals, but Monfils hit 17 aces and won 83 per cent (40/48) of his first-serve points to advance. The Frenchman led 5/1 in the second-set tie-break but had to save a set point at 7/8 before clinching the quarter-final appearance.