"I've tried to come up with new ideas to get my hunger back" - Thiem on absence from tennis

Dominic Thiem did not have an excellent start to the 2021 season and his withdrawal from Miami and Monte Carlo raised a lot of eyebrows.

It has been far from an ideal start to the 2021 year as the US Open champion went out of the Australian Open 4th round with another early exit in Doha. That prompted him to withdraw from tennis for a while pulling out of Miami and Monte Carlo. The Austrian ace is set to return later this month in Belgrade and speaking about the reset he imposed on himself he said:

“I just didn’t do anything at all at first. I just got away from it all and also watched very very little tennis. I [tried] to just come up with completely new ideas – to not do anything for a week and not even think about tennis: don’t watch tennis, and then at some point, you’ll get hungry again.

The Austrian is not the first player to speak about motivation during the pandemic as several other players have spoken about the lack of motivation to play during the pandemic. For Thiem it was simply time to get away from tennis for a while which has to be done according to him:

“I think that’s the most important thing because if you take a break and then you still study results all the time or watch the tournament in Miami or whatever, I don’t think you can really get away from that, but it has to be done.”

Thiem is set to appear at the Serbia Open which will start on April 19th following the conclusion of the Monte-Carlo Masters.