Dominic Thiem out of Estoril Open against Bonzi

Dominic Thiem is out of the Estoril Open after losing to Benjamin Bonzi in straigh sets 3-6 6-7(9).

The Austrian tennis player arrived in the Portugueses coastal town to get in some matches that he desperately needs as he is working his way back from injury. Thiem's goal is to be ready for the French Open which he reiterated in his pre-event interview here. It did not go so well which is not a surprise. Thiem had hoped to win this match as Bonzi is far from comfortable on clay but it wasn't enough.

Overall it's not so terrible for Thiem as he played a rather strong 2nd set but he was unable to find a breakthrough in the set and ultimately close out in the tiebreak. The first set was a bad one by Thiem as he struggled a lot with timings and generally committed a lot of cheap mistakes. The backhand was misfiring, the forehand was not good enough with only the serve being good.

The serve proved quite crucial in the 2nd set as it was the only thing that kept Bonzi away from a break point. The Frenchman was a bit more solid than Thiem in rallies and had a few semi-chances but every time he came close Thiem had a strong serve. It was the only thing that really worked for the Austrian. We got to th tiebreak and Bonzi had an early 2-0 lead.

Thiem turned it around with 4-2 and after that, we had a close battle between the two players with Thiem having 3 set points overall. Bonzi had two match points and he used the 2nd one to win the match and move on.