One day the Italian Adriano Panatta memorably declared: “The devil invented tennis”. The number 3 in the world, Dominic Thiem, will surely agree with him, as the interview recently published by the Austrian champions shows, which was also published today by Essentially Sports.
The 27-year-old won his first Grand Slam trophy at the 2020 US Open when he defeated his friend Alexander Zverev in the final. In a few days he will try to defend his result at the Australian Open last year when he was defeated by Serb Novak Djokovic in the last game.
Thiem: “I’ll explain how I manage my games”
The Austrian said: “The demons are there. I don’t know what other players are thinking, I can’t look inside their heads.
In my case, however, the demons show up in almost every game. There are few games where everything goes perfectly. “Dominic explained:” Tennis is a difficult sport from a mental point of view: It is because mistakes always occur, you are completely alone on the field and you are not always in control of everything.
You are very dependent on your opponent. This whole combination of factors makes everything extremely complicated. However, the Flushing Meadows Champion seems to have a solution: “Once you learn to deal with your demons and accept that they won’t go away, it gets easier.
When I speak of myself I can say that the situation has always improved over the past two years. “Last year, Thiem reached the last game of the London ATP Finals for the second time in a row and lost in three sets against the Russian Daniil Medvedev (comeback like 2019).
Dominic played in two finals for Roland Garros and always competed against Rafael Nadal. At Wimbledon, he never made it through the fourth round, which he reached in 2017 (loss to Thomas Berdych). Roger Federer will be back on tour soon after waiting for more than a year. Photo credit: Sky Sports
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