Austrian top seed Dominic Thiem hits a return to Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy during their Qatar ExxonMobil Open first round match played at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot/The Peninsula
DOHA: Playing competitive matches after a long break is always a tricky affair. Top seed Dominic Thiem discovered it is not easy to find your rhythm right away with your first match of the season. The Austrian, however, held his nerve to overcome some first-set jitters to beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy to reach the second round of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open here yesterday.
The Austrian, who finished his 2017 season by making his second appearance at the ATP Finals in London, began his new season with a straight sets 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 win over the Moscow based Donskoy in the first meeting between the two.
Also making it to the second round were, Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia, seventh seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain and Andrey Rublev of Russia.
The first-round action continues today.
At the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, Thiem making his second appearance in Doha was pushed to the wall by Donskoy in the first set.
Thiem, who served 13 aces in the one hour 36 minutes encounter, bounced back in quick time to win the first set in the tie-break.
The World No. 5, who double faulted three times, broke the Russian’s serve twice in the second set, in the sixth and ninth games to claim victory.
The 24-year-old is the tournament’s top seed after the withdrawal of Novak Djokovic because of a persistent elbow injury.
Thiem is eyeing his second ATP World Tour hard-court title and his ninth overall in Doha was delighted to begin his season on a winning note in Qatar.
“Very happy with the win. Win on the first day of the year is a nice feeling,” Thiem said while speaking to journalists after his match.
“The end of the season was not so good, but the start of the new one is good. As for the last season almost all the players have forgotten or is a past for them. It’s a new season, a new beginning in the New Year”, he added.
“It was a good victory against tough opponent, playing after a pretty long break. After a good start, it got pretty close in the first set. I had to save two set points. In the end I’m satisfied with most parts of my game.
“It’s nice to be top seeded. But here it doesn’t really matter because nobody has a bye, so it doesn’t matter if you are 2 or 1 seed. The season is going to be very long, and I hope that I can have a good start here,” Thiem said.
“Last year was not good on hard courts. Two years ago, it was way better. So, I try to improve again or to have better results on hard court. I want to play better on hard courts.
The clay court-specialist will take on the winner of the first round clash between Slovenian Aljaz Bedene and Malek Jaziri, a Tunisian handed a wild card by the organisers.
In the other matches, Basilashvili defeated Italian Thomas Fabbiano 6-4, 6-3 and will face the winner of the match between second seed Pablo Busta Carreno of Spain and Borna Coric of Croatia.
Verdasco rallied from behind to down Dudi Sela of Israel 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 to also advanced to the second round where he will square to Rublev. The Russian has it easy in the first round as his opponent Cedrik-Marcel Stebe of Germany retired hurt with Rubley having won the first set 6-1.
Meanwhile, second and third seeds Carreno and Tomas Berdych play their opening round matches today.
Carreno said that he has set some goals for new season to take his game to a new level.
“It was a very, very good season, last one. For the new one, I hope to continue improving, no. I think the most important thing for is continuing improving my tennis, my confidence. I think that I can do it better than last year,” he said.
Carreno said the opportunities were there for other players to claim this year’s Grand Slam titles.
“If Rafa, Federer, Murray or Djokovic plays at his best level, it will be very difficult for us to win a Grand Slam,” he said.
“But if we continue improving -- because I think that, for example, Dimitrov or Goffin, they are playing really good and they finish the season playing really, really good.
Another new season resolution for the Spaniard is not to slip from the top-ten.
“I would like to continue in the top 10, no. It would be fantastic to finish the year again in the top 10 and to play the ATP Masters Finals again. We know that is really difficult. Lot of players were injured last season and now they kind of start again to play, like Murray, Djokovic, so it will be fun to start the new season.”
“You know, when you do a season like this, it’s always difficult not to continue and to do it better. But the important thing for me is to continue improving my level. We know that the last season is difficult to repeat, but we are here to do it,” Carreno added.
