Thiem Off To Fast Start At Home

Austrian Dominic Thiem started one of his favourite weeks on the ATP Tour with his first win against France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Tuesday, beating the Frenchman 6-4, 7-6(2) to make the second round of his home Erste Bank Open in Vienna.

Thiem came back from 0/40 down to break Tsonga in the seventh game of the opening set, and the top seed pulled away in the second-set tie-break. The Austrian, who was 0-2 against Tsonga in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, which included a 2013 Vienna loss, did not face a break point and won 80 per cent (33/41) of his first-serve points.

The 26-year-old has already secured his fourth consecutive trip to the Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 in London, from 10-17 November. Thiem is going for his fifth title of the season, which would be a career-best single-season haul.

He will next meet Fernando Verdasco, who beat Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili 4-6, 6-2, 6-1. The Spaniard leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head series with Thiem 4-0, which includes a 2017 hard-court matchup at the indoor Rolex Paris Masters.