In an interview with the podcast “Jot Down Sport”. Dominic Thiem now about the ups and downs of his career. The Austrian explained, among other things, why his triumph at the US Open 2020 led to a kind of sporting crisis of meaning.
by Clemens Engert
last edited: November 27, 2025, 4:45 p.m
When Dominic Thiem won the US Open in 2020, quite a few people thought that this would have a liberating effect and that other major titles would quickly follow. However, this expectation never came true.
The Austrian now gave insights into the emotional world of this time in a conversation with the podcast “Jot Down Sport”. The path to his big goal, the title at a major, was very strenuous and exhausting, said Thiem. “It took a lot of research and experimentation to find the details that were missing for me to win a Grand Slam. Tournament planning was extremely strenuous; I had to optimize everything in order to be in top shape for these four tournaments,” says the Lichtenwörther native looking back.
“I wandered aimlessly for a while”
The time after the big triumph turned out to be completely different than he had always believed: “I was pretty naive back then and thought that if I won the tournament and fulfilled my dream of being a star, the rest of my career would be child’s play. I really believed that, but then I suddenly found myself without a concrete goal,” admits the former world number three.
“I wandered aimlessly for a while. It wasn’t intentional, it just happened that way. I had lived so long and so intensely for one thing, and I truly believed that it was the only thing that mattered,” said the now 32-year-old, who also revealed more details about his career.
When he was still a teenager, his grandmother sold her apartment – just to invest the money in his career. Thank God the investment was worth it in the end, said Thiem, but it was also a certain burden: “Even though I was probably only 14 or 15 and had a lot of other things on my mind, you still realize that as a child and that creates enormous pressure.”
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