By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday July 14, 2022
Dominic Thiem notches his first Top-20 win since 2020 to reach the quarterfinals at Bastad.
Photo Source: AFP
Dominic Thiem continues to surge on the red clay of Bastad. The Austrian, who snapped a 10-match tour-level losing streak on Tuesday with a three-set victory over Emil Ruusuvuori, turned it up a notch on Thursday with a vintage performance against Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain.
Thiem, making his debut at the Nordea Open in Sweden, will face either Sebastian Baez or Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the quarterfinals.
Thiem completed a 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-4 triumph over the No.4 seed for his first Top-20 win on tour since November of 2020. The 28-year-old is into his first ATP quarterfinal since May of 2021 (Madrid) and is feeling much better as he makes his way back from an injury hiatus that lated nine months due to issues in his right wrist and hand.
“It was really good,” Thiem said. “You know the win against Emil on Tuesday gave me a lot of confidence that I can compete again with the best players in the world. Today against Roberto, always such a tough opponent. First time that we played on clay, and I was expecting a close match or at least I was hoping that I could make the match close.”
Thiem needed two hours and 40 minutes to get the victory. He was solid down the stretch and didn’t face a break point as he improved to 2-4 against Bautista Agut in their first clay meeting.
“As soon as I won the first set in the tiebreak, I said, ‘Yeah, I can also win today,’” Thiem said. “And that was my belief until the end of the match, and the third set was very good.
“It's a process you know, but I beat Ruusuvuori and today I beat Bautista Agut, so two really top opponents,” the former World No.3 said. “So yeah, if I can beat them, I'm definitely back. I’m in the quarters of a really strong tournament, so I'm happy - it's obviously still a process but I’m on a good way.”
Andrey Rublev, the No.2 seed, defeated Federico Coria, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(2), while Laslo Djere took out Marc-Andrea Huesler, 7-5, 6-2.