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Dominic Thiem battles into first ATP semifinal of the year on home soil in Kitzbuhel

The 2020 US Open champion and former No. 3 is also into the milestone 45th tour-level semifinal of his career.

ByJohn Berkok

Published Aug 03, 2023

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Dominic Thiem’s fighting spirit in front of his home crowd was on full display for the second day in a row in Kitzbuhel on Thursday, as he battled back from a set down to defeat Arthur Rinderknech, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the quarterfinals of the clay-court event.

Thiem had come back from a first-set blow-out the day before, defeating China’s Zhang Zhizhen in the second round, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.

With his win over Rinderknech, Thiem is into his first ATP semifinal of the year, his best results of the season before this being a pair of quarterfinals in April—both on clay as well—in Estoril and Munich.

It’s also the milestone 45th tour-level semifinal of Thiem’s career.

Things looked dire early on for Thiem as he dropped serve at 15 in the very first game of the match—Rinderknech ended up riding that break to a one-set lead.

But that would be Rinderknech’s only break of the match, as Thiem held onto all 14 of his other service games from there, and broke once in each of the next two sets—for 3-1 in the second set and 2-1 in the third—en route to a hard-fought two-hour-and-20-minute victory.

“It was another great, great night here. Unbelievable,” Thiem said in his on-court interview. “The only bad thing about the whole match was the start—the first game was horrible.

“It’s amazing for me. First semifinals of the year and I couldn’t have chosen a better place.”

Thiem is going for his third ATP title on home soil in Austria, having won Kitzbuhel and Vienna in 2019.

Thiem is going for his third ATP title on home soil in Austria, having won Kitzbuhel and Vienna in 2019.

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Awaiting Thiem in the semifinals will be the No. 5 seed, Laslo Djere, who upset No. 3 seed Pedro Cachin earlier in the day, 6-4, 6-2.

Thiem and Djere have played twice before, splitting those meetings, 1-1. Thiem won on clay in Rio de Janeiro in 2019, 6-3, 6-3, while Djere won on indoor hard courts in Tel Aviv last fall, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-4.

For Thiem, a win on Friday would be another milestone—he’s trying to reach his first tour-level final since 2020. He reached three that year, winning the US Open and finishing runner-up at the Australian Open (to Novak Djokovic) and the ATP Finals (to Daniil Medvedev).