NEW YORK — His final shot fell well wide of the baseline, which meant it was time to head to the net, but Dominic Thiem still had reason to do so with a smile.
From 2017 to 2020, Thiem was no less than the fourth-best tennis player in the world. Often, he was ranked two spots above that. He made it to four Grand Slam finals, posted a combined record of almost 50/50 against Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, and finally won his first Grand Slam at the US Open.
For some time now, Thiem has accepted that he would never play like that again. The strain he put on his body trying to compete with the game's greats for so many years had broken him down physically. He had built up a lot of power from his surgically repaired wrist, but he could no longer hit the shots that would hurt the world's best players. So a few months ago, the 30-year-old Austrian decided he would play one last time at a major, one last time in Vienna, and then call it a career.
In some ways, the most important stop on this bye tour was Monday. Not because Thiem had a chance to play against 13th-seeded American Ben Shelton — it was a predictably one-sided 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 match — but because it gave Thiem a chance to experience something he never got the last time he played at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Applause, and maybe even more so, appreciation.
“This is a really important moment for me because I've had the biggest successes of my career right here,” Thiem told the crowd after a short ceremony to acknowledge his retirement. “Unfortunately, I had this success without any of you. So it was definitely a really wonderful moment at the same time, but also a very sad one.”
Every tennis player grows up dreaming about what it would feel like to win a Grand Slam. None of them ever imagined an empty stadium filled with silence after a championship point.
But those were the conditions under which Thiem won his major title in 2020 after a tough five-set match against Alexander Zverev.
Just four years later, that whole period of our lives seems a little surreal and thankfully a long time ago. The compromises we had to make to hold a tournament like the US Open were necessary at the time, but far from ideal. Even in that moment, we all understood that Thiem deserved a better Grand Slam celebration than he got that night.
Still, Thiem gave tennis every reason to believe there was more to come. He was just reaching his peak, as fit as any player in the game and ready to collect important hardware just as Nadal and Djokovic grew older.
Instead, Thiem never won another professional title. His wrist started hurting in early 2021, and when he returned nine months later, the game that had earned him a spot at the top of the sport was not there. There were some flashes of good play, but nothing sustainable. What had made him great – his excellent baseline power from both his forehand and backhand – had simply diminished to the point that strokes became commonplace.
“The same feeling on the forehand never came back,” Thiem said on Monday. “And of course I struggled a lot mentally because it was hard to accept. But I'm really happy with my past career and never expected it to be so successful, so I have no regrets and I'm happy with it.”
It's great that Thiem is leaving the game satisfied and content, rather than upset about what he lost, but it's still a little sad to think that he hasn't received the recognition he historically deserves for being such a good player. Anyone who's calling him a one-slam wonder is completely wrong.
In an era when nobody was regularly progressing beyond the Big 3, Thiem beat Djokovic five times out of 12, including the 2017 and 2019 French Opens. He won six of their 16 meetings against Nadal, including a stunning 7-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6 win in the 2020 Australian Open quarterfinals. And he is 5-2 against Federer, including the 2019 Indian Wells final.
“I've played great matches against the best players of my era, maybe even the best players in history,” he said. “Now those are amazing memories. But back then it was important for me to know that when I step on the court against Novak or other best players, I have the ability to win.”
For the past few years, Thiem knew he didn't have that ability anymore. When he finally accepted that, he found freedom to look at life in general rather than his tennis career.
But he wanted another chance at Ash, he wanted to hear the praise and admiration he never got on the best day of his career four years ago. It was a fitting farewell, really.
“I tried to enjoy every moment in this stadium,” he said. “Of course I'm not at the level I need to be to go head to head with players like Ben, so I tried to enjoy it as much as I could. I'm happy.”
Follow columnist Dan Wolken on social media @danvolken
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