World No.5 Dominic Thiem believes a change in direction was what he needed to take his game to the next level.
The 26-year-old joined forces with former player Nicolas Massu back in February in what was initially meant to be a short-term arrangement. However, the two soon achieved success on the court. A month later Thiem won the BNP Paribas Open, in what was his first ever Masters 1000 title. Since then he has also triumphed in Barcelona, Kitzbuhel, Beijing and most recently Vienna. He is currently the only player to have won five or more ATP titles in 2019.
“For now it has been the best season of my career. It’s amazing working with him,” Thiem told atptour.com about Massu.
“He has really made great changes in my game, great additions. It somehow made my game more unpredictable. We improve the game on the net together, my serve. We improve my game on fast surfaces. ”
Massu is best known for winning the 2004 Olympic title in both singles and doubles. Becoming the first and so far only athlete from Chile to win multiple gold medals in the history of the games. He reached a ranking high of ninth during that same year and earned a total of $4,344,833 in prize money.
In the midst of Thiem’s success on the tour, the Austrian admits that it hasn’t all gone to plan. Particularly at the grand slams where he has only managed to win seven matches. Although six of those occurred at the French Open where he reached the final for a second year in a row. It is his lowest number of matches won in the majors within a season since 2015.
“It has been a great season, but I still had some parts of the calendar where I couldn’t play well.” He admits.
“In three of four Grand Slams I lost in the first or second round, that is not so good, I will try to improve this next year. I would also love to improve my net game a lot, finish the points faster with good volleys. ”
Already qualified for the ATP Finals for the fourth year in a row, Thiem is hoping to end his year on a high. His next challenge will be at the Paris Masters this week. A tournament he reached the semi-finals at 12 months ago. He starts his campaign on Wednesday in what could be a tricky encounter.
“Facing Milos (Raonic) in my first match is hard because I didn’t have time to practice much here and adapt. But I will try to do my best, we’ll see.” He concluded.
Thiem enters Paris with a win-loss record of 45-16 so far this year.
