Thiem's dominance on display at Roland Garros

One year ago, Dominic Thiem was one of the hurdles that Novak Djokovic leapt over to chase his white whale—a French Open trophy. The Serb defeated his younger opponent in straight sets in what was Thiem’s first-ever major semifinal.

“He's a leader of a new generation, very powerful, and has a lot of strength and variety in his game,” said Djokovic, who would win the title. “I'm sure that, as I told him after the match, we're going to see a lot of him in the future.”

Djokovic was a dominant force, becoming the first player since Rod Laver to hold all four Grand Slams at once. Little did the Serbian know that a year later, he would lose to Thiem in stunningly straight-forward fashion, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-0.

There are two stories here. The first is Djokovic’s confusing downward spiral.

The 12-time Grand Slam champion last left Paris with his most cherished win to date. This time around, he was served a final set bagel—just the third 6-0 set lost of his Grand Slam career and the first since 2005—to send him packing.

The second story is Thiem’s play. The 23-year-old has yet to lose a set this fortnight on his way to his second-straight Roland Garros semifinal. It's no fluke; he's ranked No. 7 for good reason.

That was plenty evident in the final warm-up event before the French Open, when Thiem beat Rafael Nadal (his next opponent in Paris), 6-4, 6-3. After the match in Rome, a reporter asked the Spaniard, what went wrong.

“What goes wrong? The opponent played very well,” Nadal said. “He was better than me this afternoon.”

Nadal should be worried. Thiem's belief in big matches showed in his win against Djokovic. He turned his game around after losing 6-1, 6-0 to Djokovic in Rome just before the French Open.

“I don't really like to play against him, because he has a game style which doesn't fit me at all,” Thiem said in Rome.

He then pushed those thoughts out of his head in Paris, while Djokovic seemingly gave up.

“Nothing was going my way and everything his way,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference. “He definitely deserved to win.”

It was Thiem’s first of what surely will be many Top 10 wins at a Grand Slam. But while it's hard to say if he will beat the favored nine-time French Open champion Friday, the young Austrian has shown that he is ready for the big stage.