Dominic Thiem opens up on the error he believes sent his tennis career off course

Reflecting on his injury, Thiem told the podcast: “The injury didn’t come out of the blue. I was almost 28 years old and had been putting my wrist through a lot of strain since I was 10 or 11, so for almost 17 years. So it’s been through a lot.

“Therefore, it’s not such a huge surprise that the injury occurred. Moreover, this is an extremely typical injury for a tennis player. I think that more people have had the injury than have never had it.”

He went on to say: “But it was still my first serious injury. I think the longest I had been out was three weeks because I slightly twisted my ankle, and that was an extreme change.

“I pretty much made a lot of mistakes. I started again far too soon, not giving the body time to heal, to regenerate the wrist, which was of course due to a lack of experience with injuries.

“As a competitive athlete, I think you know that you control your body incredibly precisely and immediately know when something serious just happened, and that was simply the case at that moment when the wrist injury occurred.

“Immediately, I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be a long-term story’. The wrist is so sensitive, and with my playing style, especially with the forehand, the wrist was more important than I think for many other players.

“There are so many little nerves, and it is, after all, the last point of contact between the body and the racquet. That was very difficult back then, a very difficult experience.”

Dominic Thiem’s Grand Slam record throughout his career

Thiem’s best years came as the ‘big three era’ was winding down, but Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were still very much in control of the sport.

Even so, the Austrian reached four Grand Slam finals. His first two came at Roland Garros in 2018 and 2019, where he lost to Nadal both times.

He then pushed Djokovic to five sets in the 2020 Australian Open final but came up short again.

Thiem finally broke through later that year at the US Open, coming from two sets down against Alexander Zverev to win his first major title.

Apart from his finals appearances, he also made semifinal runs at Roland Garros in 2016 and 2017.

On the other hand, Wimbledon was always a tough place for Thiem. He never made it past the fourth round there during his career.