Dominic Thiem, 31-year-old former US Open champion, retires in Vienna

What defines a tennis player’s legacy?

This question is particularly perplexing when assessing the arc and meaning of Dominic Thiem’s career. The 31-year-old, who retired today at the ATP stop in Vienna, put together an impressive career tally: 17 tour-level singles titles, including a major at the 2020 US Open and a career-high world ranking of No. 3. Among male pros of the last 20 years, this resume puts Thiem in similar territory to such other recent one-Slam winners as Marin Cilic, Juan Martin del Potro and Daniil Medvedev.

Thiem also competed extremely well against the Big Three, winning 16 of 35 matches versus Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Three of those victories took place at Grand Slams. The Austrian twice took out Djokovic at Roland Garros (in 2017 and 2019) and once beat Nadal at the Australian Open (2020). Thiem was 5-7 versus Djokovic, 6-10 against Nadal and 5-2 over Federer.

“You could definitely feel like every shot in Dominic's game has got some punch behind it,” said Federer after losing to Thiem in the 2019 Indian Wells final. “That's where his secret lies . . . He can hit through heavy conditions, forehand and backhand and [do] that time and time again.”

⤴️ 2020's No. 2 Match, Thiem's US Open final comeback ⤴️

But the quantitative data scarcely does Thiem's journey justice. Start with his signature shot. In an era when the two-handed backhand has heavily dominated the sport, Thiem’s one-hander was a rare exception. As he showed repeatedly, to make that shot work in contemporary pro tennis, it must not just be proficient, it must be extraordinary. Thiem’s was splendid, fueled by a full rotation of hips and shoulders, propelled by a full-bodied swing and the pure belief in a stroke practiced so frequently and thoroughly that there was no need to back off it.

While the backhand drew awe for its distinct place in the tennis culture, the Thiem forehand was arguably even more lethal.

“My strokes are safer when I hit full power,” said Thiem. “They are unsafe when I hold back; it’s more that I force myself to go full power all the time.”

The entire combination made Thiem a most pleasing player to watch—an engaging blend of artistry, power, and focus.

Alas, Thiem’s greatest triumph took place under circumstances concurrently unimaginable and downright bizarre. This was the 2020 US Open, conducted at the height of the pandemic, with zero spectators in attendance.

“It’s strange and negative,” Thiem said early in the tournament.

Horrible as this was through the early rounds, the solitude of it all became exponentially worse on the day of the final, when Thiem entered Arthur Ashe Stadium versus Alexander Zverev and took in 23,000 empty seats.

Both players were frequently nervous, and it showed in their erratic, tentative play. In the end, though, Thiem had rallied from two sets to love down—and 5-3 in the fifth—to win, 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (6). Not since Pancho Gonzalez’s 1949 win over Ted Schroeder at Forest Hills had a man rallied from two sets to love down to win the U.S. singles title. In addition to Zverev, Thiem had beaten several notable players of recent years—Cilic, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Alex de Minaur and Medvedev, who triumphed the following year.

Thiem was one of those players seemingly born into the game. His parents, Karin and Wolfgang, were both tennis instructors. Soon after his early years of parental instruction, Thiem at the age of nine began to work with Gunter Bresnik, the notable coach who’d previously worked with Boris Becker. Bresnik encouraged Thiem to drop his two-handed backhand for a one-hander. And while it’s obvious that Thiem’s work ethic was relentless, it’s uncertain what comprised his labor.

Folklore emerged that Thiem had run into forests with logs on his back and swam in chilly winter rivers—rumors that Thiem denied. Bresnik confirmed, though, that Thiem’s devotion was ceaseless. As Bresnik said in a 2017 Racquet Magazine story, “He’s the only guy who never, ever asked me how much longer practice is going to take.”

Said Thiem, “You always have to continue working, because everybody is. Once you stop, the others will overtake you.”

As Thiem swiftly blossomed on the tour, there were concerns that he was playing too many tournaments. In a three-year period that began in 2015, Thiem played well over 25 events annually, a 223-match workload. With swings during this time to both the arduous South American clay court season and post-Wimbledon clay stops in Europe, Thiem’s competitive appetite appeared to allow little time for rest and recovery. But if there was the hovering awareness that such devotion could break Thiem, he was also aware that it had made him.

“I’m a player or I’m a person who needs to practice a lot; otherwise I don’t play well,” Thiem said in a 2017 GQ story.

Thiem’s tennis was breathtaking, his commitment thorough, his desire delightfully visceral. This was a man who carried himself with tremendous intention.

In the wake of that breakthrough win at the US Open, though, the taut rope that had made Thiem so successful began to fray. In 2021, an injury to his right wrist ended Thiem’s year in June. By May 2022, he’d dropped out of the Top 100. That year, after losing in the first round of Roland Garros to 90th-ranked Hugo Dellien in straight sets, Thiem said he had no physical problems, but that the mental part of competing had become more difficult. “I'm obviously a little bit more tight,” he said, “more nervous and obviously the whole body gets more tight, gets more nervous and right now that's toxic to my forehand because I'm still missing the fine feeling there, I'm missing it a lot.”

Two personal highlights witnessing Thiem up close came at opposite ends of the time spectrum. One morning at Roland Garros, just past 8:00 a.m., I sat with no more than ten people outside Tennis Channel’s production office and witnessed a Thiem practice session. Several years later, inside a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, I covered a magnificent US Open quarterfinal match between Thiem and Nadal that ended shortly after 2:00 a.m. It lasted 11 minutes short of five hours, Nadal squeaking past Thiem by the drama-laced score of 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5).

In both cases, be it the austerity of practice or the public engagement of competition, Thiem’s tennis was breathtaking, his commitment thorough, his desire delightfully visceral. This was a man who carried himself with tremendous intention.