The 2023 Roland Garros certainly didn't go as Dominic Thiem wanted it to go but he returned to winning ways soon after.
The Austrian 'failed to reward himself' at the 2023 Roland Garros when he lost to Pedro Cachin already in the first round. It came after another loss that he suffered in Bordeaux, at an ATP Challenger event.
But as Thiem said, his love for tennis never died and so he enrolled for another ATP Challenger event during the Roland Garros, this time in Heilbronn in Germany. The Austrian was even among seeded players with number four being displayed next to his name.
The draw was also nice to Thiem. In the first round, he took on Kaichi Uchida from Japan who lost five consecutive matches before starting on the clay courts in Heilbronn, at a time when many elect to already start preparing on grass.
Thiem didn't want to allow his opponent to even think of upsetting a Grand Slam champion and he did that by breaking in the third game of the match to go 3-1 up in the opening set.
But the Japanese player found bits of inspiration in the first set, breaking back and leveling the score at three games each. Yet, that wasn't enough to surprise the experienced Austrian who added one more break of serve in the first set and after 37 minutes, won it 6-4.
The second set was quite similar to the first one, but this time, Uchida didn't break his opponent's serve. In fact, he didn't even have a chance to and one break was enough for Thiem to seal the deal.
After an hour and 20 minutes, the fourth seed won the match 6-4, 6-4, and secure his spot in the second round of the event. In the Round of 16, he'll play against Pedro Martinez from Spain.
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