Thiem singles out Sinner and Alcaraz as played who impressed him

Not being able to play tennis meant Dominic Thiem had a lot of free time and some of it went to watching tennis.

In a recent interview, Thiem opened up about the difference between playing and watching tennis noting how different it is to simply watch tennis on the TV. Speaking about it, Thiem admitted that he started to watch tennis after the US Open last year:

“I started to watch again from the US Open onwards. It is a little bit different if you watch from some distance For 10 years I was almost at every tournament, so watching on TV is different. But now you see way more stuff and I also thought ‘How good are they playing!’ It is unbelievable I was there just one year ago, so you appreciate the level much more.”

Two players that really impressed him during that time were Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. Talking about them, Thiem said:

"I played against Jannik Sinner at an exhibition and hit with him at many tournaments, so I knew he was coming to the top and he was good [to watch]. He has been there for a while and he will probably be even higher soon."

And on Carlitos:

"I knew Carlos Alcaraz, but he made the big breakthrough when I was not there. But I saw him quite a lot because he won Umag and then he played in Kitzbuehel and he lost to an Austrian guy [Alexander Erler] and I saw that whole match. You could see it was not going to take long for him to break through. You could see he was going to be in the Top 10."