Dominic Thiem, the world number 5, suffered a shock defeat in the first round of the 2021 French Open against Pablo Andujar.
However, the Austrian is happy to start the 2021 grass-court season with a win at the Mallorca Championships.
“Right after the French Open, I was back on the training pitch for almost two weeks on the hard courts, still at home, just working on some more shots, because they weren’t what they should have been in the clay season,” explains Thiem.
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“Now I feel my punches well along with the movement of my feet. I trained for two days on grass court in Austria and have been in Mallorca for four days, now I feel pretty good. But on grass, you never know what will happen. The most important thing for me is to improve my shots, improve my stiff movements, move well again on the court, and that’s what I did in Austria.”
The Austrian won his first career Grand Slam title at the US Open last season and admits he has struggled with motivation in recent times after achieving one of the biggest goals of his career. However, he is now fully focused again.
“It’s quite normal, it happens. You train really hard for a certain goal, a big goal, then you finally achieve it,” added Dominic Thiem.
“In my case, having lost the previous three Grand Slam finals, winning at the 2020 US Open is both a huge target and a huge relief. After that, I think my motivation was a bit less.”
“But as time went on, things got better and better. Now, I feel good again, I feel normal again. I couldn’t play well enough at the French Open. On grass, you never know what will happen, so you just have to try to gain confidence, train really hard and play well in the game.”
This season is the first season for the Mallorca Championships after the tournament was supposed to be held in the 2020 season but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Austrian has spent time in Mallorca before and is comfortable. Thiem, who has 14-14 on the grass-court tournament, will start the Mallorca Championships against world number 42 Adrian Mannarino.
