Dominic Thiem shocked everybody with his level at the start of this match, but by the end of it, he left the court with his head up high.
The Austrian had high hopes before coming to the 2023 Kitzbuhel Open, as he was long overdue for a good result. Much of this year has been quite poor, and much was expected out of him as a former champion of this ATP 250event.
Being on home soil and playing in the complex where he trained multiple times should have given him an advantage, right? Wrong. Not at the start. The start was some of the worst tennis we've seen from him in a while, and that speaks volumes.
Zhang destroyed him for a quick 6-1 set that left many fans wondering whether he'll ever play well again. He did, and did it quite quickly as he managed to overturn the result and win the match.
The second set was already a lot better from the Austrian, who was much better on serve, which is exactly what he needed. He needed to tighten up his service games in order to create some pressure on Zhang, and it worked out well. He lost only a handful of points, Zhang regressed, and Thiem won the set 6-3.
It completely flipped the script as momentum was now on Thiem's side. Zhang was overhitting everything (literally), and Thiem managed to go up 2-0 in the early goings of the final set. Thiem's first win in Kitzbuhel was a comeback as well, but rain helped him in that one.
Here there wasn't any stoppage making this turnaround quite impressive, but the blueprint was always there. Zhang is anything but consistent, and if pushed hard enough, he'll collapse. That's exactly what happened towards the end of the match as Thiem took another break and finished it off 6-2. The final score was 1-6, 6-2, 6-2.
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