Published on : 04/10/2020 – 21:03
World No.3 Dominic Thiem managed to qualify for the quarter-finals at Roland Garros on Sunday after a grueling five-set fight against the surprising Hugo Gaston.
The young French Hugo Gaston, 239e world, saw his amazing career at Roland Garros end after five sets of fight against world No.3, Dominic Thiem, (6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3) in round of 16, Sunday October 4.
Gaston, the last French competitor in the men’s table, had overcome two days earlier, in the previous round, the triple Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka. Austrian Dominic Thiem, recent winner of the US Open and double finalist out of Roland-Garros, will face Argentinian Diego Schwartzman for a place in the last four.
It’s hard to believe that Gaston had not won a single match on the main circuit before this 2020 edition of Roland Garros. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a player with such touch. His cushioning comes from another planet, he made me sprint four hundred times towards the net,” said Thiem. “If he continues like this, he will become a very great player.”
An atypical and creative game
Gaston, twenty years for a week, has largely lived up to the event. Not only the Toulouse left-hander did not let himself be impressed for his first time on Central court. But, even led two sets to zero by the world N ° 3, he did not surrender and, with his atypical and so creative game, confused Thiem to the point of prolonging the meeting until a decisive fifth set. .
For an hour and a half, in the third and fourth rounds, Gaston cooked the Austrian until he lost his head, with dozens of cushionings, most often winning, with an alternation of lightning attacks and bulging balls, and even nabbing forehands without rebounding. The same recipe as against Wawrinka two days earlier.
Stuck in these destabilizing patterns, his rival, sometimes head bowed and looking weary, then multiplied the unusual faults and could not hide his frustration and annoyance. But he was able to tighten the bolts in the decisive set, especially in service. And Gaston then tried a few too many amortizations, less well touched or failing squarely in the bottom of the net, as on the second match point of the world No.3.
“We must now recover”
“In the third set I lost some energy and couldn’t find the answer to his cushioning, but I found a bit in the fifth. Now we have to recover. These last few weeks have been difficult today. ‘hui I did a lot of sprints, I ran a lot “, reacted the Austrian.
Gaston had just left the Central court under the “Merci Hugo” fallen from the stands, in the presence of a very small audience due to restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With AFP
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