Thiem goes for a swim on artificial beach in Sydney

There’s Australian beaches (like Bondi Beach) and then there’s Australian “beaches,” as Dominic Thiem found out at Sydney Festival’s “Beach at Cutaway.”

“I didn’t know anything about it, so it was a real surprise,” Thiem said. “I actually didn’t expect it to be that big. I think there are more than 1 million balls so it's great fun in there.”

At Barangaroo Reserve, there are actually 1.1 million air-filled plastic balls surrounded by a white synthetic “sand” and no sharks, riptides or jelly fish to worry about.

The Austrian was nervous at first jump, but quickly got into it.

"I didn’t have as many matches as I was hoping for last week, so I hope that I can have a lot of matches here this week," Thiem said. "I’m a player who needs a lot of matches to play good. That's why I’m here."

Last week in Brisbane, the 23-year-old won his opening round, but then lost to eventual champion Grigor Dimitrov.

He's not understating his desire for a high numbers of matches. In 2016, he racked up a reputation for playing a lot of tournaments, finishing the year with four titles and a 58-24 record after playing 28 events, the most of any player in the Top 20.

The effort paid off with the first Top 10 finish of his career and his first trip to the ATP World Tour Finals.

In Sydney, top-seeded Thiem will play his opening round against Gastio Elias.