PARIS—For the third year in a row, Dominic Thiem has made his way to the semifinals of Roland Garros, doing so in a brisk hour and 50 minutes against Alexander Zverev, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1. Unfortunately, following a fine first set, the latter two sets revealed far more about Zverev’s increasing weariness than Thiem’s sustained brilliance.
The first set was both the gem and the story. With Thiem serving at 2-3, 30-15, the two embarked on a scintillating 19-ball rally, won in the end when a Thiem forehand elicited an error. In the next game, at 3-all, the Austrian reached 15-40. Another long rally, 12 balls long, closed out when Thiem uncoiled a crosscourt backhand winner, a glorious shot that in one rolling swing held the promise of taking tennis into a whole new era of power and artistry. With the break in hand, Thiem closed it out at 5-4, 40-15 with a 126-m.p.h. wide ace.
Though Zverev possesses a narrower range of tools than Thiem, those he brings are quite impressive—particularly the serve and the backhand, the latter a shot the German can drive with repeated depth, both crosscourt and down-the-line.
So there were Thiem and Zverev, clearly two stars in the ascent; up in the stands, icons such as three-time Roland Garros champion Mats Wilander, 1998 winner Carlos Moya and Zverev’s stylistic ancestor, Marat Safin, took it all in. Such is the ebb and flow, the buzz and hum, of a Grand Slam clock ticking in both directions, of past there and future here.
Thiem has always grabbed his tennis by the throat. When I asked him what had changed in his game over the last 12 months, Thiem said, “I'm a better player in general, for sure. There was another year of work where I improved and developed my game…. I always knew how to play on clay, but I think that now I'm just making less stupid mistakes. Maybe I'm even a little bit more aggressive, and that's a good combination.”
WATCH—Match point, Dominic Thiem: