Doing it the hard way

Tennis : Rising star Dominic Thiem has chosen to play the top and lower tier events to enhance his skills

As Dominic Thiem has cemented his place this year as a rising star of men’s tennis, his quality has been matched with quantity. Thiem, 22, attained his career-high ranking of No 7 after reaching the French Open semifinals.

He has scored several notable victories along the way, pulling off the impressive double of beating Rafael Nadal on clay in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in February and Roger Federer on grass last week in Stuttgart, Germany.

But between his flashiest results, Thiem has laboured through an unrelenting churn of matches at smaller tournaments, far surpassing the workload of any other man in the top 50. While other top players rest between the biggest events, Thiem has entered and won smaller tournaments, racking up four titles this year across all three surfaces and building up the third-best winning percentage on the tour.

Thiem’s 6-4, 6-1 victory over Teymuraz Gabashvili on Thursday at the Gerry Weber Open was his 57th singles match this year, 10 more than top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who has the second-most matches on tour.

“If you always experience new and better things than before, then you don’t get tired at all,” said Thiem, who got a break on Friday when he moved into the semifinals with a walkover against Philipp Kohlschreiber. “This year, I have the feeling that every week I develop myself, and that’s a really happy situation for me.”

Federer, who has lost two of his three matches against Thiem this year, praised the young Austrian’s durability and consistency.

“I think young guys have to be able to do that,” Federer said of Thiem’s scheduling. “You’ve got to grind it out and get used to it. Then everything after that is easy. I spoke to him about his schedule coming up; he knows what he’s doing. I think it’s unbelievable to see how he’s backing it up, but I think he’s definitely playing with confidence right now.”

The grinding work ethic was instilled in Thiem from a young age by his coach, Gunter Bresnik, who would go to their training centre near Vienna on Saturdays and Sundays for additional sessions. That emphasis on constant hard work has stayed with Thiem, even when his superlative ability could allow him to rest on his talent.

“I know that it’s necessary, and I don’t know something else,” Thiem said of the strenuous schedule. “Gunter, he did it with me for a very young age, and it was his plan that I get used to this because the tour is very hard. You have to take a lot, and he was preparing me from a very young age. Now it’s at a point where I don’t know anything else. Working hard, it’s like normal for me.”

Although Bresnik instilled the philosophy, he can no longer keep up with Thiem’s travel schedule, and is on a vacation this week. Joakim Nystrom, a Swedish coach who had previously worked with the Austrian tennis federation, now travels with Thiem for about 12 weeks of the year.

“He’s playing well, and he wants to play,” Nystrom said. “He went to Stuttgart, and of course he didn’t expect to win the tournament and beat Federer; he was more there to get used to the grass and hopefully have a decent Wimbledon. Then, confidence from the French Open and before that made him win that tournament. He’s very fit, he never complains that he’s tired, and I think he likes to play matches. And why not?”

Nystrom said that Thiem’s poorer results on grass in previous years had lowered expectations and pressure last week in Stuttgart — until Thiem found himself unexpectedly leading Federer, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, 4-3 in the third set of the semifinals and having to wait through a rain delay.

“He looks at me and says, ‘Joakim, I was not supposed to feel any pressure coming here,'” Nystrom recalled. “'Now, I am 4-3, break up, against Federer, the best grass-court player ever, I need to serve two good service games and I beat him. Now I feel pressure!'”

Pressure on Thiem will only continue to mount as he continues to raise his profile in the sport, entering a landscape with few other players his age. As Djokovic and Andy Murray near 30, a threshold Nadal and Federer have passed, no younger players have been able to meaningfully join them atop the sport. Thiem attributed most of the stagnation of the wave of players now in their mid-20s to the steep incline presented by the game’s best. “They were just unlucky that they played most of their careers at the peak of Djokovic, at the peak of Federer, Nadal and Murray,” Thiem said. “Those guys are just so good.”

Thiem recognises that opportunities will come as the older generation ages out, but he wants to be able to improve himself to the point where he can compete with the current best while they’re still playing their best.

“For sure, Djokovic and Murray, and also the other two, they have a couple more very good years,” he said. “The goal for the young players, also me, has to be to compete with them at their peak. There’s nothing better than that level, so we have to work hard to be able to compete with them when they are at their peak.

“I’m really happy about the situation right now, but the thing is, you can never rest. You always have to continue working, because everybody is. Once you stop, the others will overtake you. I’m very happy how everything is, but at the same moment I try to make everything better.”