By Chris Oddo | Wednesday, August 4, 2015

 

Dominic Thiem rallied from 4-1 down in the third set to win his ninth consecutive match on Wednesday in Kitzbuhel.

Photo Source: Generali Open

Coming off of back-to-back titles at Umag and Gstaad, it appeared that 21-year-old Dominic Thiem might be headed for a big letdown at his hometown tournament.

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Thiem rallied from a set down to level with his compatriot Andreas Haider-Maurer at the Generali Open in Kitzbuhel, then fell behind 4-1 in the decider. But the ever resourceful Theim stormed back to win the final five games a book a quarterfinal slot with a 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 win.

“I’m happy to be in the quarters here. Unfortunately I had to beat my countryman to make it to the next round,” said a compassionate Thiem according to ATPWorldTour.com. “Andreas would have deserved to win this one [had he won]. He played a great match. The atmosphere was very nice. The crowd was cheering for both of us.”

Top-seeded Thiem, who owns three titles on the season, will face Albert Montanes of Spain in the quarterfinals. The Austrian, playing at a career-high ranking of 21, improves to 28-18 (19-7 on clay) on the season. He is one of only seven ATP players to have earned three or more titles in 2015.

Titles, 2015:

Djokovic, 6
Federer, 4
Theim, 3
Ferrer, 3
Murray, 3
Nadal, 3
Wawrinka, 3

Other winners on Wednesday at Kitzbuhel were third-seeded Fabio Fognini, sixth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber, Federico Delbonis and Nicolas Almagro.

Seeds to fall were 2nd-seeded Andreas Seppi and fourth-seeded Martin Klizan.

Fognini notched his 20th clay-court victory of the season with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over wild card Dennis Novak. Seppi had to retire while trailing Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic, 7-5, 3-0.