2020 US Open champ Dominic Thiem provides hope to seemingly deteriorating tennis career

NEW YORK — Dominic Thiem walked onto the Grandstand court Monday morning for the very first match of the US Open, raising his right hand to acknowledge the hearty applause that followed. 

For a good four-year stretch, Thiem got that kind of reception every time he took the court at a Grand Slam. He was a big deal in the sport — not as big as Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, of course, but he was one of the few guys that had a chance of beating them in the most important tournaments. After enough times in the quarterfinals or semifinals and then a few Grand Slam finals, Thiem became one of those guys you just had to see for yourself if you were fortunate enough to score a ticket to one of these events. 

He was also, for a few years, my favorite tennis player in the world to watch. 

Though the Austrian always seemed like a polite but guarded personality off the court — a 2017 GQ profile almost mocked him for being uninteresting — his game was enthralling. He wasn’t smooth and artistic like Roger Federer or fiery like Nadal or able to easily produce quality shots with consistency like Djokovic. 

Instead, Thiem’s game was an explosion of effort and power that seemed to be fueled by an endless supply of testosterone. Every single shot that came off his racquet looked like it required an amount of effort most mortals have no chance of understanding. His forehand was a vapor trail. And when he loaded up to hit a full-force, one-handed backhand, it was one of the most brutally beautiful strokes in the entire sport.

The way Thiem approached tennis resonated with me. It’s how I wished I could play if I had that kind of talent. I even started using his racquet, the Babolat Pure Strike, which was the most fitting name you could give a piece of equipment Thiem wielded.

Though journalists aren’t supposed to root for outcomes, I’ll admit to feeling some joy and satisfaction when Thiem broke through at the 2020 US Open, outlasting Alexander Zverev in a strange and nervy final decided in a fifth-set tiebreak.

There were no illusions that Thiem was about to run off and win a dozen majors. But with the Big Three era seemingly in twilight and Thiem entering what should have been his prime years at age 27, it was difficult to conceive of a tennis world without him right at the top. 

Then something strange happened. Thiem didn’t just disappear from major finals, he stopped winning matches altogether.

Dominic Thiem's US Open win vs. Alexander Bublik provides hope

The sadness of rooting for an athlete who isn’t what they once were is a unique and disquieting feeling. 

A band that doesn't make good music anymore can still go play their old stuff on a Wednesday night in Atlantic City and give fans exactly what they paid for. A novelist that ran out of ideas still has a shelf of books that will thrill and inspire for generations. A star actor can transform themselves into new characters as they age out of the leading roles they used to get. 

But a tennis player who can’t do what they once did, for reasons that aren’t altogether clear, elicits a different reaction. 

Thiem, even three years removed from his US Open victory, isn’t old. And though he suffered a significant wrist injury that forced him out of action after the French Open in 2021, he came back in March of 2022 and has been grinding away in all kinds of tournaments all over the world for the last 17 months without much to show for it. 

Despite some signs of progress late last year, Thiem entered this US Open with a 13-18 record on the season. He’s lost a bunch of matches that the old Thiem would never have conceived of losing. He’s ranked No. 81 in the world. Before Monday, he had lost in the first round of six straight Grand Slams. 

The fans who showed up early to catch a glimpse of Thiem against Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan might not have known all the details of how bad it’s gotten for him, but they certainly knew the general theme of his struggle. 

It’s why when Thiem shows up to tournaments these days, there is a mixture of sympathy and longing in how fervently the fans support him, particularly here at the site of his greatest success. They want him to be the player he once was, even though there’s a lot of evidence now suggesting it’s unlikely to happen. 

“I always got great support also before,” Thiem said. “But now I haven't played well the last two years, I think the people are really appreciating the comeback from the injury. I have the feeling many people feel or know that it's not easy coming back.”

Playing Bublik, the enigmatic No. 25 seed, seemed like a difficult draw on paper.

Sure, Bublik is prone to getting down on himself and doing incredibly silly, borderline unprofessional things on the court that will often lead to him either getting beat or mentally tapping out. But when he’s dialed in, he scares the daylights out of top-20 players because of his huge serve and sheer unpredictability in his repertoire. On the wrong day, Bublik can make a lot of players look bad.

In a way, I was dreading it. 

Though Thiem said he’s never considered quitting, there’s only so much agony one man can take. At Wimbledon, he drew No. 5 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round and played brilliantly for nearly four hours, looking so much like the old Thiem. But when the match came down to a fifth set tiebreak, he blinked on a couple critical points and lost 10-8. 

That’s pretty much been the story of Thiem’s comeback. 

And it's not easy to tell exactly why he hasn't been winning. The movement looks good. His fitness is there. The backhands and forehands seem fine, though there was some data early in his comeback that the RPMs were down slightly.

Lots of great players have had to come back from injuries, and unless there’s something chronic that limits them physically, they generally return to their world-class form sooner or later. Thiem has not, and perhaps it simply comes down to whether he’ll ever trust his game and his body in those pressure moments the way he once did. 

This is a guy who beat Federer in an Indian Wells final. He beat Djokovic at the French Open twice and wore Nadal out in an Australian Open quarterfinal in 2020. He was that great of a tennis player, and it seemed like just the beginning. Now you wonder if every time he steps on the court it gets closer to the end.

“The physical trust is there, you know,” Thiem said. “Since the injury I have played many tournaments. I did many, many practice sessions. I really also gave a lot of load on the wrist again. So it's completely fine. The mental side was not as easy to restore as the arm was.”

On serve at 3-4 in the first set, Bublik did something that only Bublik would think to try. Facing a break point in a critical game, Bublik hit an underarm a second serve that Thiem quickly got on top of and returned deep in the court. Bublik swung at a rushed forehand and sent it well long, giving Thiem the lead and a chance to close the set. 

From there, it wasn’t much of a match. Bublik’s game fell apart quickly. He demolished a racquet after losing the second set and opened the third by double faulting four times. At one point Bublik was caught on the mic saying something exceptionally crude in Russian about being tired of giving injured players their careers back.

But after so many difficult losses, maybe it was time for Thiem to get some karmic payback. After the last point of a 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory — finished with a big forehand winner into the open court — he raised both fists in the air and smiled in a way we haven’t seen many times since 2020. It was obvious how much this one meant to him. 

“It’s a pretty special victory,” he said. “Especially here at the US Open with all the past and all the memories I have here.” 

It wasn’t brilliant or dramatic, but it was the kind of win that makes you think — or maybe just hope — that the old Thiem is still in there somewhere. He was supposed to be the gatekeeper to slow down the likes of Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner from winning all the big titles. With each win, does he gain belief that he can compete with them? Or is that player never coming back? 

“Yeah, with every success, with every match, especially with bigger successes, back on winning ways in Grand Slams, it helps a lot on the mental side,” Thiem said.

In his last tournament prior to the US Open, Thiem actually reached the final of a smaller event on clay in Austria. It was the first tangible sign that he could put together a series of good matches. If nothing else, Thiem will go to bed Monday night thinking that his level is slowly but surely coming back.

When he plays American Ben Shelton on Wednesday, I won’t know what to expect from a player who used to be appointment viewing for me. In its own way, that’s progress. Because for the first time in a long time, it’s hope.