Thiem survives Isner and treads his fourth consecutive semifinals

“While preparing this season, I fell into a hole that we’ll see if I can get out of. I don’t know yet, but I hope so.” This was said by Dominic Thiem just a few days ago in an interview he gave to the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. In it he also spoke of how depressing bubble tennis seemed to him: “I feel a void when I compete in the midst of a pandemic. I have not seen a Monte Carlo game. The atmosphere in Australia was incredible, but curfew came. I got to the locker room, sweating, and then the floor was empty. It looked like a nuclear alert “. In Madrid, a square that brings back good memories and gives him good vibes, Thiem has risen. He had only played ten games in the entire course and had to stop in March due to a congenital problem.

At the Mutua Open he partially recovers his smile, which is not yet fully open. But that momentum has given him to get into the semifinals for the fourth time in a row after suffering and winning by 3-6, 6-3 and 6-4 this Friday to the giant John Isner (2.08), whose daring approach did not give him to score a new success after eliminating Bautista (11th in the world) and Rublev (7th). We must applaud, however, the audacity of the American, who was about to get into the penultimate round with a game of serve (18 aces) and volley, subtracting very high and going up very often to the net, as if it were on grass.

Thiem will face Rafa Nadal or Alexander Zverev this Saturday in search of his third final in the tournament, after those he lost against the Balearic in 2017 and 2018. The story could have been very different if Isner had converted any of the four break options he had in the fifth game of the second set. But they escaped him and then he considerably lowered his service benefits, in large part because of the annoyance caused by the sun to the two players when serving.

Results, table and calendar.