2023-06-30 10:42:10
Dominic Thiem received a hammer lot for the All England Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, which begin on Monday: The 29-year-old from Lower Austria has to deal with Greek Stefanos Tsitispas, seeded number 5, in the first round. Austria’s current number 1 for men, Sebastian Ofner, has a far easier time with the Czech Jiri Lehecka. Qualifier Dennis Novak meets Canadian Milos Raonic, who is making a comeback.
Julia Grabher, Austria’s only representative in women’s singles, has to deal with the American Danielle Collins in the first round and is more of an outsider. Grabher is 54th in the WTA ranking, only six places behind the 29-year-old American, but Collins is particularly able to improve in major tournaments. However, the Melbourne 2022 finalist has so far had a third round (2019) as her best result at Wimbledon. Collins did not play a turf preparation tournament, Grabher was eliminated in Bad Homburg.
For Thiem it will be the tenth duel with Tsitsipas, who is almost five years younger. The ex-US Open winner still leads head-to-head with the 1.93 m man 5: 4, most recently Thiem had to defeat 6: 3 in the second round in Madrid at the end of April following strong resistance ,1:6,6:7(5) bend.
For the French Open round of 16, Ofner, the lot is easier at first glance. However, the Styrian with Lehecka has the quarter-finalists of the Australian Open as an opponent last January. At that time, the Czech had only lost to Tsitsipas. The only duel so far with the current world number 36. Ofner lost last year at the Challenger in Graz with 3:6.6:4.4:6.
Qualifier Novak has a big name as an opponent with Raonic, following all the 32-year-old Canadian was in third place in the ATP ranking, like Thiem once was. However, Raonic had fallen far behind with various injuries in the past two years. This year he only played in Hertogenbosch, but he won a round on his comeback.
Novak lost the only duel with the now 840th in the ranking in Wimbledon of all places. In 2018, Raonic prevailed in the third round 7:6(5),4:6,7:5,6:2. Five years later, Novak is certainly better attuned than Raonic, who will only be playing his third match following his break since the beginning of August 2021.
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