Former Kitzbuhel Open champion, Dominic Thiem has started his home campaign in Austria with a win over Facundo Bagnis. Rain delay, no problem for the former US Open champion.
It turned out a brief suspension did him good as Bagnis led initially 4-1 but the match was briefly suspended at 4-2.
Upon return, Thiem showed signs of composure previously not there fighting back and winning the opening set in the tiebreak 7-3. It was a superb fightback for a player with 15 wins and 23 losses this season.
This continued as he went 3-0 up in the second set. But the match was far from over.
Thiem allowed himself to get broken by Bagnis who sent it all the way to a second set tie-break. The latter led 4-2 as he looked to force a deciding set, but Thiem battled back to 4-4.
Again Bagnis jumped ahead at 6-4 before Thiem's turn to surge going 6-6 before sealing it 8-6 for a final score of 7-6(3), 7-6(6). Not the easy way but a straight sets win nonetheless. Next up Zhizhen Zhang in the second round.
Dominic Thiem saves 5 SPs in the first set and 2 SPs in the 2nd, comes back from 4-6 in the 2nd set tiebreak to beat Facundo Bagnis 7-6(3), 7-6(6) and reach the 2nd round in his home tournament of Kitzbuhel, where he won the title in 2019. Big celebration in the end at 11.30pm.
