“Yes, I separated from Benny after Australia,” said Thiem at a press conference in Schörfling am Attersee, where he and Sebastian Ofner informed, among other things, their season planning. An agreement is close to being reached with a successor who will become a dedicated touring coach. Thiem didn’t want to name anyone yet, he just revealed that he wasn’t Austrian.
Thiem will now train more at home in Traiskirchen and Oberpullendorf with his father Wolfgang. He has changed his plan for the next few months and is returning to the Challenger Tour for a few tournaments.
Thiem is considering resignation
After a disappointing year in sport, Dominic Thiem is putting his rod in the window and is not ruling out retiring at the end of the year. As a first consequence, the former third in the world tennis rankings separated from coach Benjamin Ebrahimzadeh after less than a year.
After the Davis Cup international match in Ireland next weekend, which, like Ofner, he is playing because of the ITF regulations in order to possibly be able to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris, Thiem will also take part in a long-promised exhibition tournament (UTS). Oslo.
Training and Challenger starts instead of a trip to America
“Then I will skip the trip to America this year and train for another two or three weeks. Then in March I will start with three challengers on clay: Szekesfehervar, Zadar and Napoli,” said the world number 90. and caused astonishment. Only then will he decide what to do next.
APA/Barbara Gindl The year 2024 should be significantly more successful for Dominic Thiem than the years 2022 and 2023
He has almost no points to defend until Monte Carlo. That’s why he wants to collect a lot of points in the aforementioned Challenger tournaments, said the former number three in the world. “Then I can soon move towards the top 70 or 60, and I can also plan better because the ranking where I am now is a difficult one. Every 250cc tournament is a tough game.” He was simply missing the last few percent, and that’s why he decided to “come back home”. He doesn’t miss much.
“I see this as my last chance”
“I see this as my last chance. If I can do it, it can happen quickly.” When asked what the last chance statement means exactly, Thiem said: “I’ve been back for two years now since the injury, and I finished 2022 on 100 or so and last Year on 98. If I end this year on 100 again, I’ll have to consider whether the whole thing is still worth it.” His goal for this year is the top 50.
The decision to separate from the German-Iranian Ebrahimzadeh, with whom he had only worked together since March 2023, came about after the five-set defeat against the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in the first round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
IMAGO/ABACAPRESS/Joly Victor/ABACA Thiem and Ebrahimzadeh are going their separate ways after less than a year of working together
“For two years now I’ve been in ranking spheres that I don’t want to be in. Of course that puts a strain on me,” said Thiem when asked by APA. “There are a lot of things that come along that I haven’t known for years, like worrying about getting into the main competitions of tournaments for ages.”
Money is not motivation
The 2020 US Open winner and four-time major finalist rejected doomsayers on the Internet that he would only play for the money. “I never did it for the money either. I’m not a person who cares much about money. No matter how honest I am, I don’t really care about the whole topic. I’ve been chasing the feeling of actually playing tennis again in a match the way I can for a long time. And how I demand the same from myself.”
In any case, the new touring coach will not be a big name or even a super coach. “No, it won’t be such a sensation, definitely not. I want someone who also knows my path. “I became so successful in a certain way.” When asked about returning to Günter Bresnik, who had shaped him into a top player for a long time, Thiem quickly said no. “No. It will be someone who knows me as a player – since I was young, so to speak. I see this as the only chance to get the finishing touches.”
The Kitzbühel final last year was a good week. “But the first rounds in Kitz were just about fighting, I somehow got over it, you have to be honest like that. So I won’t have any great long-term success.” Things went better for him in the USA afterwards. “Then unfortunately the stomach issue got in the way.” Thiem finally gave the all-clear in this regard, everything is fine again with the stomach.
2024-01-30 17:03:45
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