- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australian Open eighth seed Dominic Thiem will be out to improve his form line when he takes on comeback king Jordan Thompson in the second round. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage of the match from around 8:30pm (AEDT).
Thiem had a pretty weak start to his summer of tennis and looked nothing near his best at either the Brisbane or Sydney International.
While he got a win in his first round match at the Australian Open, it was less than convincing and he will be out to make major improvements against the Australian if he wants to keep his run alive.
After bombing out of the Brisbane International against Grigor Dimitrov with only one win to his name, which came against Sam Groth, he then beat Gastao Elias in his first match at the Sydney International.
Despite being favourite to continue on in the tournament, Thiem was then beaten by Daniel Evans and came to Melbourne with a massive cloud hovering over his head.
He again struggled to play his best tennis in the first round against the lowly ranked Jan-Lennard Struff. After losing the first set, he played better to win the next three and advance to the second round.
Given the way Thompson is playing, though, and the fighting spirit he displayed in the first round, Thiem will need a marked improvement.
Thompson played in both Brisbane and Sydney to start his season like Thiem and made it all the way to the quarter-finals in Brisbane before bombing out against Kei Nishikori in straight sets. That came after a big upset against David Ferrer.
After a second-round exit in Sydney, Thompson was drawn to play Portugal’s Joao Souza in the first round at Melbourne and looked in all sorts of trouble down two sets to love.
He then came back and only dropped six games across the final three sets to take a memorable victory in front of a solid crowd on Show Court 2.
Thompson’s final set was an utter domination and if he gets his serve right, Thiem may seriously struggle to break him.
The pair have never faced each other before this meeting and the winner will go on to face either Benoit Paire or Fabio Fognini.
Prediction
Thompson, as he always seems to do, will fight hard here and probably take it all the way, but Thiem will have too much for him under pressure at the back end of the match.
Thiem in five sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live coverage of this match from around 8:30pm (AEDT) or at the completion of Mirjana Lucic-Baroni vs third seed Agnieszka Radwanska on Margaret Court Arena and don’t forget to add your own comments in the section below.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde