Dominic Thiem admits he ‘didn’t deserve’ Roland Garros wildcard
Dominic Thiem has made a winning start to his Roland Garros qualifying campaign, and responded to controversy after he was not awarded a wildcard for the tournament.
Thiem has announced that this will be the final year of his professional career, but will need to qualify for the Roland Garros main draw.
???? Le message de Dominic Thiem (30 ans) qui annonce la fin de sa carrière dans quelques mois. ????????????
????️ « La saison 2024 sera ma dernière. Mon poignet n’est pas exactement comme il devrait être. Je repense à mon voyage en tant que joueur de tennis et il était incroyable » pic.twitter.com/4aji0lHuj8
— Univers Tennis ???? (@UniversTennis) May 10, 2024
The Austrian was ranked at world No.105 at the time of entry, and was left four places away from gaining direct entry to the main draw.
There was a lot of backlash for Roland Garros when Thiem was not awarded a wildcard, despite being a two-time tournament finalist and former US Open champion.
However, Thiem has insisted that he thinks that the tournament’s decision was justified after his opening qualifying win against Franco Agamenone.
“Honestly, I had a lot of time to be in a good ranking. I had enough tournaments and enough time to rise in the ranking and I didn’t, so I didn’t deserve it and that’s okay,” claimed Thiem. “I had 10 main draw appearances in the last few years “That’s more than enough.”
Q1 | Dominic Thiem gets through to Qualifying Round 2 ????????????#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/pFYu5xuug6
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 20, 2024
Thiem came back to beat his Italian opponent, 3-6 6-3 6-2, in the opening round of qualifying and will go onto play Otto Virtanen tomorrow.
Inside the baseline…
It was certainly disappointing to see Dominic Thiem not receive a wildcard, but it is nice to see him take the decision and subsequently qualifying in his stride so far. In some ways it might be helpful for Thiem to find form and fitness through qualifying, and with the raucous Roland Garros crowd behind him he seemed to be enjoying playing a match for the first time in a while.
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