“My career was coming to an end,” Dominic Thiem reveals why he made the decision to retire at the age of 31
Dominic Thiem’s career was derailed by a wrist injury four years ago, leading him to retire at just 31.
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Dominic Thiem (Image via X)
Dominic Thiem retired from tennis after the Vienna Open. The wrist injury was one of the reasons behind his retirement at the age of just 31.
Thiem won the 2020 US Open by beating Alexander Zverev in the final. The next year, the Austrian suffered a wrist injury and, since then, he failed to recover completely, which cost him the ranking points. Thiem reached his career-high when he became World No. 3 in early 2020.
Now he stands in 318th position and has won just two matches out of the eight he played this season before the Vienna Open. Ahead of the tournament, Thiem asked why he had to make the choice between playing with a continuous struggle with the wrist injury and retiring from tennis.
I think it helped that I took the decision already in March and that I had the time to prepare. In the last two years or so, I have seen that I’m not going to be able to come back to the ranking and to the playing level I once had. I knew that slowly, my tennis career was coming to an end. I needed to look for new ways because there’s going to be life after tennis.
Dominic Thiem told Tennis Channel
In Austria, he met Luciano Darderi in the first round but lost the match in straight sets after playing a tie-break in the first set. Before his home tournament, Thiem participated in his final Grand Slam event at the US Open and lost in the first round.
Dominic Thiem on what he has learned from playing tennis
Dominic Thiem knows that when tennis players are on the courts, they have to battle it out alone with little to no help from the outside. He thinks fighting alone is the ‘best thing’, as winning a tournament makes him feel that the ‘main part’ of the victory was himself.
You start from a very early age to win and to lose alone. To solve solutions only by yourself. You get just really little help from your team in the match. But mostly, you really have to solve the problems alone.
Dominic Thiem told Tennis Channel
Apart from his first title at the US Open, Thiem has reached three Grand Slam finals (the 2020 Australian Open and the 2018 and 2019 French Open). He lost in Melbourne to Novak Djokovic, while in both Roland Garros finals, 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal defeated him. Overall, the 31-year-old has won 17 ATP titles.
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