The ÖTV figurehead suffered a defeat in the second qualifying round.
After Jurij Rodionov was eliminated in the first round, Dominic Thiem was also hit in the second round of the preliminary round at the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday. The Lower Austrian (ATP 110), seeded 14th, lost in the qualifying final of the ATP Masters 1000 clay court tournament in Spain’s capital against the Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis (ATP 93) after around 1:24 hours of play with 1:6, 3:6. The 30-year-old has to hope for a second chance to slip into the main competition as a lucky loser. The 2020 US Open winner lost as the fourth highest seed – and there has already been a rejection in the main draw by the British Daniel Evans.
At the beginning of Monday, Thiem defeated the Brazilian Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves (ATP 128) after being 3:5 behind in the third set 6:2, 3:6, 7:5. But the next day things didn’t exactly go as planned in the first duel with Kokkinakis. While the “Aussie” confidently held all of his service games in the first set, Thiem always struggled in his own: he lost the first after two game balls, won the second after defending two break points, and finally gave up the third after two missed chances to win 1:5 off. In the second round, Austria’s number two was unable to capitalize on three break chances at 1-0 and 0-40. This took revenge: Kokkinakis won the last four games from 2:3 onwards, and another break chance for Thiem in the eighth game remained unused.
As a result, Red-White-Red is initially only represented by Sebastian Ofner in the main field. The Styrian (ATP 45) already knows his first round opponent: the Argentinian Pedro Cachin (ATP 91), who is still winless in eleven matches this year and has not won 15 games in a row across the seasons, is waiting for him.
2024-04-23 17:08:55
#Thiem #hope #chance
