Having reached the pinnacle of his career in 2020 with victory in the first Grand Slam of his career at the US Open, a wrist injury and an almost endless series of related problems sucked Dominic Thiem into a negative maelstrom from which it only finally came out a few months ago.
Until then, the Austrian had managed to climb to third position in the ATP ranking and was able to compete even with the ‘sacred monsters’ of tennis such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray.
Precisely in relation to the so-called ‘Fab Four’, Thiem revealed to Tennis Channel the most embarrassing moment he experienced in a locker room. The 29-year-old from Wiener Neustadt candidly stated that it was sharing the same place with his famous colleagues: “It must actually be the first time I was in the same locker room with Rafa, Roger, Novak, Andy, you know, I mean that you see these guys when you’re only 10 years old on TV and then you’re next to them in the locker room and they don’t know what to say.
You’re like, ‘Oh! Who is that?’ I mean, I didn’t even know those guys were real. So it’s quite embarrassing, not for them, but for me,” Dominic Thiem said. After a decidedly disappointing start to the season in terms of results, Dominic Thiem got his act together and week after week climbed the positions again.
In recent statements to Tennis Head, one of his coaches, Jez Green, assured that the real Thiem will return soon: “Dominic has already been at the top and working with him is a very interesting project. His situation in terms of physical form is very funny: his previous coach was really old school and did not take much care of this aspect, since my arrival things have changed.
We have improved his program and he is doing things that he has never done before.”
Federer left a huge footprint
Novak Djokovic showered more praise on his great rival Roger Federer. “His footprint, his legacy, his mark that he left behind is going to live forever,” Novak Djokovic said when asked about Federer during a chat with Prakash Amritraj.
“Even now that he retired, his legacy is going to be there for many many decades and generations to follow. He has not only achieved so much on the court but he has inspired so many young players to take a racquet in their hand.
You have so many top players now talking about it, Roger was their idol. That’s great, that speaks of his greatness.”
