Defending champion Dominic Thiem was ousted from the Erste Bank Open Vienna on Friday, as he fell to Russian Andrey Rublev in straight sets.
The Austrian was hoping to extend his 11-match winning streak on home soil, having captured the titles in Vienna and Kitzbühel last year. However, after losing the first set in a close tiebreak, Thiem was less competitive in the second as Rublev prevailed with a 7-6(5) 6-2 victory.
Although Thiem refrained from getting any medical treatment during the match, he hinted at an injury as his movements were delayed and lacked his signature explosion. The World No.3 revealed after the match that he was in fact struggling with an ailment on his right foot.
"This has been causing me problems at the indoor tournaments for years," Thiem disclosed. "The rough covering and the slab construction are poison for me."
The US Open champion added that he has been dealing with the condition for years but is yet to discover a permanent solution to this ailment.
"We work on it every day, but on the right foot there's incredible pressure when you slip into the balls and it gets worse from game to game."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.