Thiem: Record vs. Big 3 ‘very high up’ in career achievements

Dominic Thiem competed in an era featuring some of the greatest stars the ATP Tour has ever seen. Yet unlike many of his contemporaries, the Austrian rarely appeared overawed by who was standing on the other side of the net.

Thiem is one of just two players, alongside Andy Murray, to have registered at least five Lexus ATP Head2Head victories against each of the ‘Big Three’. He finished his career with records of 5-2 against Roger Federer, 6-10 against Rafael Nadal, and 5-7 against Novak Djokovic.

So for a player that also reached as high as No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings and lifted 17 tour-level trophies, including at the 2020 US Open, where does his impressive 16-19 overall record against three of tennis’ greatest icons rank in his career achievements?

“[It’s] very high up there. All the matches against the ‘Big Three’, not only the wins but all the matches, because I grew up watching them on TV,” Thiem told ATPTour.com after the final match of his career on Tuesday at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna. “I remember the first match I really set my schedule for [to watch] was the 2005 Roland Garros semi-final, Federer against Nadal.

“All of a sudden, I was playing against all those guys. All the matches against them were an amazing experience and I’m very proud that I had so many of them.”

Although Thiem was unable to prolong his career past the first round in Vienna, where he fell to Luciano Darderi in straight sets, the home favourite nonetheless showed flashes of his flamboyant best in his final professional match. A couple of trademark backhand-down-the-line winners in particular had his adoring home supporters on their feet.

“I really wanted to have some of those signature shots today, so I could show them to the fans one last time as a professional player,” reflected Thiem. “It was very important [to me], and I think people liked it. The one-handed backhand is a very nice shot, which unfortunately we see less and less, but there are still luckily some very good players around, like Lorenzo [Musetti], Stefanos [Tsitsipas], Denis [Shapovalov] and others.

“I hope they will keep it going and I really hope I’m not the last Grand Slam champion with a one-handed backhand for too long.”

So what next for Thiem? The Austrian has plenty of off-court interests to focus on, including his long-held passion for environmental causes. Yet he acknowledged it will take some time for him to achieve complete emotional closure after retiring from the sport he has played for as long as he can remember.

“It’s a mix of emotions right now,” Thiem told Tennis.com’s Matt Fitzgerald. “Of course I’m very sad, because today the whole Austrian crowd showed me all the emotions and all the energy. I will miss that definitely. But there is also some relief, because in the past weeks and months I was also thinking a lot about how this last match and last week of play was going to look like. Now I’m through that, so I’m relieved.

“Then of course I’m still very emotional from all these years of playing tennis. I was almost professional for 25 years, so it’s a very long time, and it’s not going to be gone from one day to another. So, I still need to process everything, but I’m very happy and I hope the fans are as well.”

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