'Love For Tennis Never Died': Thiem Honest About Difficulties In Comeback
ATPSaturday, 27 May 2023 at 11:11
Updated at Tuesday, 12 August 2025 at 12:32
Dominic Thiem spent some time away from the tennis court and the ATP Tour, but now his back on his way to the top.
It's always a difficult journey after being out for a very long time, and the Austrian knows quite a lot about it. It's been more than a year since he started his comeback, and he's still to break into the Top 50.
However, the hardest part is already behind Thiem and now he only has to build his way up. As he admitted in an interview with BBC, the hardest part for him was coping with the fact that he was out for so long.
"It was difficult for me to cope with - and unusual - because it was the first time I had been out injured for a long time. In the first 10 weeks I was in a cast so couldn't do anything anyway - and then the struggles started when I began to play again."
One of the things that was really weird for Thiem during the recovery was the training process. He couldn't hit the ball with the power that he wanted to, even though his mind wanted to do that.
"It was so tough because before I was used to ripping the ball, I was used to using the wrist at full power and the whole body at full power, and then it was just not possible. My mind wanted to play full power. The body wouldn't allow it."
But the 2020 US Open champion knows that injury was probably inevitable in his career and that's how he approaches it. It happened because it maybe had to happen, but now, he's body is fine again.
"I was always very lucky with my body because I was pushing it to the limit almost every day when I was young. Because of all those strokes I did in my career up to then, it was inevitable something was going to happen at one point. Now everything is well and the body feels great."
Although Thiem admitted that he was struggling early on in the season, and admitted that his level wasn't sufficient, during the Sunshine Double, things started changing for the Austrian.
"My level is getting much better because the beginning of the year was not good at all. I was playing at a pretty bad level, definitely not good enough for the tour or for the top guys. Then at Indian Wells and Miami things changed."
The Austrian is aware of the fact that during the clay-court part of the season, his performances improved, pointing out the epic match against Stefanos Tsitsipas at the 2023 Madrid Open.
"I started to play well and the clay season has been decent. The match against Tsitsipas was close, really close, giving me the feeling I am able to play at that level. I've been working very well and very hard for the past six weeks. I hope that will pay off at Roland Garros."
But one thing that is the most important for Thiem is that his love for tennis never died, and he's 100% sure of that. With that in clear goal in his mind, he believes that he can reach another peak in his career.
"The love of tennis never died - it was just covered by thoughts in my mind which were not easy. But deep inside, the love of tennis was always there and will always be there, I'm 100% sure of that. Now I have a pretty clear goal in front of my eyes which is to get to my highest level tennis-wise. I definitely saw it was possible. This is the clear goal I have in the future - to reach another peak."
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