Thiem Works His Way Into Barcelona QFs

Austria’s Dominic Thiem recorded his 12th win in 15 clay-court matches on Thursday for a place in the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell quarter-finals.

The third seed and last year’s finalist, one of the best performers in clay-courts matches over the past two years, didn’t have things all his own way in a 7-6(5), 6-2 victory over Slovakian lucky loser Jozef Kovalik in one hour and 44 minutes.

Thiem, with a 21-5 on the season, which includes his ninth ATP World Tour crown at the Argentina Open (d. Bedene), will now challenge #NextGenATP Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas or No. 10 seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.

World No. 146 Kovalik broke for a 3-2 lead, but Thiem won the next three games. Thiem won five of the first six points of the tie-break, closing out on his fourth set point opportunity. Thiem carried the momentum into the second set, including service breaks in the first, fifth and seventh games.

World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, the 10-time champion, takes on fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez later today, while second-seeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov meets Malek Jaziri of Tunisia.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2Hu6xBO