“Thiem was treated unfairly in Austria” – Sportmix

“I’m unemployed and live in my mom’s basement. I’ve registered with the AMS, I currently have no income.”

Lucas Mieder was the fifth best tennis player in Austria when he described his difficult everyday life as a tennis professional in “Today” at the beginning of the first corona wave in spring 2020. The 23-year-old could not live from his job at the time. He earned 323 euros at his last tournament in South Africa. “I got 1,000 euros from the hardship fund, that was it,” he recalls.

Low fixed costs, no trainer

In the season before Corona, Miedler had earned almost 75,000 euros as a professional – before tax. In addition, there was entry and prize money from national league games, which suddenly fell flat. He was happy that he was saving himself the rent in a basement apartment in his mother’s house and had parted ways with his coach Werner Eschauer a few weeks earlier.

“I always kept my fixed costs low,” he says. It didn’t bother him that his mother lived one floor up. “I get along well with her.”

Fast everything else

That was in 2020. In 2023 almost everything will be different at Miedler. He has no worries about his livelihood, he earned 160,000 euros in prize money alone by mid-May. The 26-year-old serves in doubles instead of singles. And he has better chances of winning the French Open in Paris than Dominic Thiem.

Miedler forms the red-white-red successful double with Alexander Erler. The duo wrote sports history because they were the first Austrians to win the ATP tournaments in Kitzbühel (2021) and Vienna (2022). In Acapulco and Munich they added two more ATP titles this year. A few days before the first serve in Roland Garros, the Tyrolean and Lower Austrian are number 34 and 35 in the world. So you are in the middle of the world, exactly where Thiem wants to go again.

Alcaraz defeated, then doubles

“The apartment in the basement is still there,” smiles Miedler when asked about “Today”. “But I have a girlfriend now and I live with her and not in the basement anymore.” Postscript: “Personally, not much else has changed, I think I’ve stayed the same person.”

In terms of sport, the tournament victory in Kitzbühel started an avalanche. “We won from nothing.” It was pure coincidence that they became a couple on the spot. “I was able to choose from four doubles partners and decided on Alex. That was also a feeling for the ball.”

Even after the emotional Kitz triumph, it was not clear that her future lay in doubles. Logically, because Erler beat a certain Carlos Alcaraz in this tournament week in the Gamsstadt in singles.

“We only trained specifically doubles for four days”

“Alex has weapons, he’s dangerous from behind with his enormous power. I have the overview, a little more feeling. I’m the more solid part that puts him in positions so that Alex can really burn.” This is how Miedler describes the recipe for success on the pitch. “It’s this mix that makes it for us, it makes it difficult for the opponents.”

He doesn’t believe in the popular belief that they surprised many top teams as an undescribed duo. “It doesn’t work that way. At this level, quality prevails.”

Miedler still sees a lot of room for improvement. “We only trained four days specifically for doubles. That was last winter with Alex Peya. We can benefit from his experience. It’s not about completely reinventing things, it’s about perfecting processes. We can improve everywhere and that will also be necessary.”

“We don’t do everything together because we’re not one person.”

Life as a doubles team is not always easy. “Of course there are points of friction,” says Miedler. “We work together, but that’s different than an office job from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We don’t do everything together either, because we’re not one person. Everyone has their own interests. I’m definitely the more sociable type, always have the dice board with me included.”

“Thiem made me a better tennis player”

Between the tournaments, both deliberately go their separate ways. Erler trains in Kufstein, Miedler with his current coach Wolfgang Thiem in Traiskirchen. “He made me a better tennis player,” says Miedler, who won the Australian Open in doubles as a junior in 2014 at the age of 17. “In the beginning, our training wasn’t designed for doubles. Serve, return, pull the basic strokes – everything has gotten better and is helping me now.”

Difficult comeback

In Traiskirchen, Miedler also followed Dominic Thiem’s ​​comeback closely. “He had an incredibly bad injury, a broken wrist is a disaster when he pulls on the forehand. Dominic was treated unfairly. He was one of the best, that should be appreciated. People should give him time.” Writing off a Grand Slam winner wouldn’t have really surprised him. “There are countries that simply have more for sport than Austria.”

Ex-coach to Thiem: “Stop self-deception”

Simple calculation

Miedler has written off his singles career. “The math is simple, you don’t need to have won a Nobel Prize. I just earn more as a doubles player.” He received 1,300 euros for a win in a futures tournament, for the first-round elimination at the Masters tournament in Rome there was 7,890 euros most recently.

In Geneva, the ÖTV duo clearly failed 4: 6, 1: 6 to Jamie Murray (GB) and Michael Venus (AUS). The focus is now fully on the French Open. “It inspires us to play in front of a lot of fans,” says Miedler. “That’s why it’s appealing to me to play for Austria at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. But that’s still a long way off. Before that, there’s still enough appeal for us. Everyone believed at first that we could only win at home. We proved the opposite. “

Patterns about Thiem: “Catastrophic decisions”