Last year, Dominic Thiem played some solid matches and met his goal of finishing the season near the Top 100 on the ATP Tour.
However, the 2020 US Open champion didn't start the 2023 season well. He played in two exhibition events, and then he competed in Adelaide, at the Australian Open, and he also played two Davis Cup matches.
Thiem didn't win any of these matches, moreover, he couldn't win a single set and he entered the draw of the 2023 Argentina Open on a seven-match losing streak and with 15 consecutive sets lost.
In the first round of the tournament, he took on the seventh-seeded Alex Molcan, who also struggled with his form at the start of the season. He lost four out of five matches that he played, and he certainly wasn't a favourite against the Austrian.
Both players were cautious in the first set, and so it reached a tie-break. Thiem prevailed as he got three mini-breaks, while his opponent could break his opponent's serve only two times, so former world no. 3 won the first set 7-4 in a tie-break.
In the second set, both players held their serve for a long period of time once again. But this time, Thiem didn't want to play yet another tie-break, as he broke Molcan in the eighth game and won the match 7-6(4), 6-3 in an hour and 47 minutes to record his first victory of the 2023 season.
In the next round, the Austrian will play against Juan Pablo Varillas from Peru, and he will have a great chance to advance to the quarterfinals and get at add at least 45 points to his ATP Rankings.
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