Thiem: I wish there were two winners
Austrian wins his first Grand Slam leaving Zverev shattered after nerve-jangling US Open final
Austria’s Dominic Thiem finally claimed his first Grand Slam title with a stunning comeback to beat Germany’s Alexander Zverev 2-6 4-6 6-4 6-3 7-6(6) in a brutal and nerve-jangling US Open final on Sunday.
The 27-year-old world No 3, beaten in his first three Grand Slam finals, started as favourite but appeared to have blown his golden chance as he fell two sets behind.
Thiem, who had dropped only one set en route to the final, looked stifled by nerves early on but gradually broke the shackles to hit back from a break down to take the third.
Zverev faltered on serve at 3-4 in a high-quality fourth set allowing Thiem to take the contest to a decider.
A limping Thiem trailed 5-3 in a tense decider but Zverev could not close it out and the Austrian summoned some incredible baseline winners to take it into a tiebreak.
A gut-wrenching climax saw Thiem squander two match points from 6-4 with forehand errors but he would not be denied and set up a third match point with a passing shot before Zverev fired wide after four hours and two minutes.
I wish there were two winners today, we both deserved it,” Thiem, the second Austrian to win a Grand Slam title after Thomas Muster’s 1995 French Open title, said on court after a tearful speech from his crestfallen 23-year-old opponent.
Thiem had lost the last two
French Open finals to Rafa Nadal and 2020’s Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic.
This time he started as the favourite but needed to become the first player to win a Grand Slam title from two sets down since Gaston Gaudio at the 2004 French Open to end his wait.
Thiem is the first male player born in the 1990s to claim a Grand Slam and the first besides Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer to claim one of the Majors since Stan Wawrinka won the 2016 US Open.
Later Zverev said it was too soon to look for the positives as the devastated German struggled to come to terms with the defeat.
After winning the opening two sets in his first Grand Slam final, the 23-year-old looked set for victory until second seed Thiem fought back, taking the title in a tiebreak as an exhausted Zverev struggled through a thigh cramp that neutralised his powerful serve.
“I was super close to being a Grand Slam champion. I was a few games away, maybe a few points away,” he told reporters. “I don ’ t think it’s my last chance. I do believe that I will be a Grand Slam champion at some point.”
The fifth seed said the turning point in the four-hour thriller came when Thiem broke his serve for the first time in the third set, a break which reversed the momentum of the match.
“He started playing much better and I started playing much worse,” said Zverev, who also lost to Thiem in the Australian Open semifinal earlier in 2020.
Asked if he could point to any positives from his time at Flushing Meadows, he was blunt: That question is probably two, three days too early to ask right now.”
During the on-court trophy presentation Zverev tearfully thanked his parents, whom he said had both contracted the novel coronavirus.
“Unfortunately my dad and my mother got tested positive before the tournament and they couldn’t have gone with me. I miss them,” he said, pausing to compose himself. I’m sure they’re sitting at home, even though I lost, they’re pretty proud.”
He later told reporters he was so lost in the moment that he could not recall what he had said.
“Losing 7-6 in the fifth after being two sets to love and a break up is not easy,” he said. “At the speech, I mean, I got emotional. I couldn’t put two words together. Yeah, it was a difficult moment for me.”