Dominic Thiem admits being nervous after first victory at AO

World number 3, Dominic Thiem advanced at the 2021 Australian Open after a straight-sets victory over Mikhail Kukushkin and he admitted he needed to 'find the right balance' after arriving to Australia.

The 27-years-old Austrian will try to reach at least the final as he did last year in Australia, and maybe even fight for the title. Dominic Thiem will take on Dominik Koepfer in the next round, but first, he took some time to speak about how he felt before starting his 2021 Australian Open campaign.

“He’s very experienced, he played fourth round here (in 2012), and I think he likes the conditions, it’s way faster,” Thiem said on court after the win. “First set was super-challenging, I was a break down, it was a bit of a key point. In general I’m very happy to be back and to have a successful first round.”

“In general I’m very happy to be back and to have a successful first round. Definitely I felt nerves because it was a long time until the slam, more than three weeks from when we arrived to Adelaide. It was not easy. It was amazing that we could practice, but three weeks is a long time, and if you're unlucky or especially me, if I practice somehow too many days in a row, I start to play worse again instead of better. So I really had to find the right balance," Thiem said in his press conference