Thiem: 'Good Clay Season, Bad Ending'

What was supposed to be a blockbuster semi-final battle on Friday at Roland Garros ended up being a disappointing blow for Dominic Thiem, but the loss doesn’t erase his accomplishments on clay this season.

The Austrian found himself overpowered against Nadal and suffered a straight-sets defeat. But while Thiem was upset by a third loss to the Spaniard this season, he was more disappointed with his performance. The sixth seed hit 34 unforced errors and faded out in the final set, only winning nine points as Nadal cruised to victory.

“I think he played a good match today. I was not on top of my game and that was the result everybody saw,” said Thiem. “It’s nice to be in the semis again, but now I’m really disappointed because I just couldn’t play the way I wanted to. I don’t know why yet, so I have to find some reasons. It was a good clay-court season, but a very bad ending for me.”

Despite the loss, there are still plenty of positives for Thiem to take from his Roland Garros run. He repeated his semi-final run from last year at this event, but did so this time without losing a set. Thiem also picked up his first victory in six attempts against Novak Djokovic in their quarter-final match.

The progress in Paris has extended to his results throughout 2017. He’s already scored wins this year over every player currently ranked in the Top 4 of the Emirates ATP Rankings and has been exceptional on clay. The 23 year old prevailed this February in Rio de Janeiro (d. Carreno Busta) for his first ATP World Tour 500 title, reached the final at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell and Mutua Madrid Open (both l. to Nadal) and handed Nadal his only loss on clay this year in the Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals.

Thiem will remain in the Top 4 of the Emirates ATP Race to London and is well on track to qualify for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals for the second straight year. Given his victories over all of the world’s best players over the past 12 months, his huge game continues to have fans touting him as a future World No. 1.

Next up for the Austrian is the grass-court season. Having already competed in 14 tournaments this year, Thiem will extend his ironman status with more ATP World Tour events in Halle and Antalya before heading over to Wimbledon. It remains the only Grand Slam he hasn’t reached the second week of, but Thiem is confident he can achieve that milestone and more this year.

“It’s always nice to play on grass. It’s not a long period of the season, so it’s always special,” said Thiem. “It’s completely different than clay because I think you can lose to far more opponents if they have a good day or a big serving day. It’s going to be completely different than the last few weeks.”