» THIEM TO FACE DJOKOVIC IN FINAL
MELBOURNE, Australia — Fifth seed Dominic Thiem on Friday defeated seventh seed and friend Alexander Zverev 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4) to reach his first Australian Open final, where he will face defending champion Novak Djokovic.
The 26-year-old came from one set down and saved two set points in the third set as he before wrapped up matters in three hours 42 minutes with his 43rd winner.
Thiem is the first Austrian, man or woman, to reach the Melbourne final.
This will be Thiem’s third final overall at the majors, having lost the French Open deciders in the past two years against Rafael Nadal.
Thiem, 48 hours removed from a grueling four-hour quarterfinal win against Nadal, had a shaky start at Rod Laver Arena, immediately falling behind after hitting four unforced errors on his serve.
The 26-year-old Austrian broke right back, but dropped his serve again on 3-3 and 5-3 to surrender the opener to the German 22-yearold in 40 minutes.
Zverev, who had a consistent start with just six unforced errors in the first set, hit four on 1-1 in the second to fall a break behind.
He hit a couple of winners to level at 3-3 but failed to hold onto his serve after that, allowing Thiem level to one set apiece on his serve after 80 minutes of play.
Despite Zverev hitting all of his first serves to start the third — he would go on to miss just one of 32 over five service games and four in the whole set — Thiem managed to go up 2-0 and got a chance at a double break on 3-1, but instead allowed Zverev to pull it back again in the next game.
After defusing two set points on 6-5, the Austrian eventually came out on top in the tiebreak, hitting a backhand winner to close the third.
In a tense fourth set a tiebreak was again needed with no break points in sight across 12 games, with Thiem superior again.
“It was an unreal match, again two tiebreaks, so tough and so close. It was almost impossible to break him, I mean he had such a high percentage on his first serve ... an Australian Open final is absolutely unreal,” Thiem said.
“To be honest both of us could have won this today maybe, it was a little bit experience, a little bit something else,” Thiem said of his opponent. “But he is still only 22 so I guess we don’t have to wait long until he’s through to his first Grand Slam final.”
Thiem also defeated four seeded players at a slam for the first time in his career, having gone past 29th seed Taylor Fritz, 10th seed Gael Monfils, top seed Nadal before Zverev.
But Zverev had an impressive Melbourne campaign as well, having only dropped one set on his way to his first semifinal at a major.
“I had a lot of chances, I had 14 break points, that should be plenty. In the important moments I didn’t play my best, he did. It’s where the match kind of went his way,” Zverev said.
The German 22-year-old, whose best result at a slam had been two quarterfinals out of 18 appearances, said he was disappointed with the defeat but overall satisfied with his performance in Melbourne and positive about the future.
“Everybody has their own path ... I want to have my own way, I want to have my own path and I want to be the best I can be, and this I still need to prove to people,” Zverev said.