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At the 2019 German Open, the No.1 seed Dominic Thiem has stormed his way into the quarter-finals following his impressive straight sets wins over Pablo Cuevas and Marton Fucsovics and will now face Russia’s Andrey Rublev in their upcoming last-eight encounter at Hamburg.
After a disappointing end to his clay season where he was beaten yet again by Rafael Nadal in the finals of Roland Garros, the 25-year old Austrian suffered a shocking first round exit three weeks later at the Championships, Wimbledon. He was shown the door by Sam Querrey and at Hamburg, the Austrian is playing in his first tournament after the drubbing he went through at the All England Club.
After stumbling at the Wimbledon, Thiem, predominantly a clay court specialist would be delighted to be back in action on clay at Hamburg and would hope to gain some confidence and momentum before he heads into the North American hard court season to fancy his chances at the final slam of the year, the US Open.
On the ATP tour, this is Thiem’s third instance of competing at Hamburg and he has never gone past the quarter-final stages at the German Open. In 2018, in the quarter-finals, Thiem succumbed to Nicolas Jarry at Hamburg in straight sets and would hope for a much improved performance this time around as he prepares himself to lock horns against an interesting prospect, Russia’s Andrey Rublev in his quarter-final clash.
In their head to head tally, Dominic Thiem has registered two wins over Rublev in as many encounters so far. In their only meeting on clay, after dropping the first set, the Austrian narrowly edged past the young Russian 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 at the Monte Carlo Masters in 2018.
Andrey Rublev, who was a quarter-finalist at the US Open in 2017, has been going through a torrid time on the ATP tour so far this year and would be more than keen to bring about a turnaround in his fortunes in the second-half of the year.
In his career so far, the 21-year old Russian’s only title triumph has come on clay when he won the Croatian Open, an ATP 250 event at Umag in 2017.
After a straight-sets victory over Cristian Garin in his Round of 32 encounter, Rublev struggled in the first set against Casper Ruud in his Round of 16 contest before showing enough resilience to overcome his Norwegian opponent 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. However, in the upcoming quarter-final clash against the player of Dominic Thiem’s stature, an unrelenting and stern test awaits the young Russian.
Dominic Thiem, who has a tremendous game which is tailor-made for clay, would feel dejected for anything less than a title victory at the ongoing Hamburg Open and Rublev is one of the opponents in his journey towards title triumph.
Thiem starts as an overwhelming favourite against Rublev. However, the Austrian cannot afford any complacency or any undermining of his young opponent’s tremendous potential and exuberance.
Can Thiem cruise through his quarter-final clash against Rublev or will the latter have any different ideas or plans to stun the No. 1 seed?
Well, the proceedings in the Friday’s quarter-final clash will have all the answers.
Prediction: Dominic Thiem to win in straight-sets.
