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Dominic Thiem in action at US Open

Dominic Thiem: ‘I played well against a great champion, but I need to improve to go further’


Dominic Thiem says he needs to improve on his third round win over Marin Cilic if he is to win the US Open, but he’s still happy with what he produced.

The second seed overcame a third-set blip against the 2014 champion to set up a fourth-round clash with Felix Auger-Aliassime.

It came after he raced into a two-set lead without barely being challenged by the Croatian.

However, after fending off an attempted comeback, Dominic Thiem knows he must find more in his game in the second week.

“Today was a good match against a great champion,” Thiem told reporters. “First two sets came pretty easy.

“I think he came out a little bit slow also because of the tough matches he had in the opening rounds. He gave me some little mistakes.

I had luck that I was breaking him in the opening games of the first two sets, which always helps a lot against these big servers.

“Then he raised his level a lot in sets three and four. Good tennis, very close. It probably would have gone to a fifth when I don’t save these breakpoints at I think was two-all.

“In general was a good, close match. I’m happy. But, yeah, of course I have to improve to get the chance to get further.


Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.