The scenarios as the singles and doubles stars of the ATP World Tour Finals enter their last round-robin matches were complex and various.
For the fortunate few, the pressure was already off, their position determined. Novak Djokovic, with two straight-sets wins, had not just qualified for the semis but was guaranteed the top position in his group. He therefore had no pressure on his final group match—other than getting his hands on another 200 points towards reclaiming the No1 ranking.
For Marin Cilic there was clarity at the other end of the spectrum. Two straight-sets losses and his time in London was done.
And then there was Gael Monfils: two losses, an ongoing injury problem, and he withdrew from the tournament to leave reserve David Goffin to play a match against Djokovic that had no impact on anyone… except for those 200 points.
But in between there were more questions than answers.
Andy Murray, despite two victories, was still not assured even of qualifying, let alone finishing at the top of his group. He had to play Stan Wawrinka in the third match of a highly competitive group, and a win would put him top of group. A loss in three sets would put him second in his group—if Kei Nishikori beat Cilic. But a Wawrinka straight-sets win plus a Nishikori win, and Murray would be heading home before the knock-out stages for the third year in a row.
For two men, though, the picture was as straight-forward as it could be. Dominic Thiem and Milos Raonic faced off in a winner-takes-all match for the second place in the Djokovic group and a semi-final place.
The two youngest men in London had met only once before, and only a few months back in the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Masters. It was a win for the 25-year-old Canadian Raonic, owner of one of the most formidable serves in tennis.
The last time he qualified for the World Tour Finals, in 2014, Raonic was the same age as his rival here, and lost two round-robin matches before pulling out injured. This time, he qualified fourth, won his first match against Monfils, and pressed Djokovic hard in a tight two-tie-breaks loss.
But Thiem, who only turned 23 in late September, and playing here for the first time as the last qualifier, had done just as well—arguably better. He, too, beat the sub-par Monfils but he gave Djokovic a huge scare in his opening match, too. In one of the most compelling sets played this week, Thiem beat the five-time champion 7-6(10) before losing the match 6-0, 6-2.
And in the process, the young Austrian attracted a lot of new admirers among the 16,000 or so that watched his matches. For it had become clear to them why this quietly-spoken player was tipped for great things.
He first caught the eye of many as a shy 20-year-old in a cold and grey Rotterdam, early in 2014. At the time, he had just five main-tour wins to his name, all of them on home soil. As a teenager, he had strung together Futures titles in 2012, and by the end of 2013, it was Challenger titles. But still ranked outside the top 100, he arrived in the Netherlands having qualified for the Australian Open for the first time and winning his first Grand Slam match. Now he again came through qualifying and faced Murray in the second round.
It took Murray 2hrs 21mins to pull out the win in three sets, and he afterwards commented: “An exciting game to watch but not much fun to play: I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more of him!”
Murray had put his finger on it: Part of what catches the eye is how he plays: An energetic, compact, aggressive game with hints of Wawrinka about it—not least in a single-handed background wrought from a similar cast.
Sure enough, after Rotterdam, he broke the top 100, reached the third round of his first Masters in Indian Wells, made his first final in Kitzbuhel in July, his first Grand Slam fourth round at the US Open, and broke the top 40 by the autumn.
Last year brought his first title in Nice and then back-to-back titles in Umag and Gstaad. After breaking the top 20, he was, not surprisingly, one of the four nominees for Most Improved Player in the ATP Awards
This spring, he surged again, after a 13-1 run through both clay and hard-court tournaments: the title in Buenos Aires—beating Rafael Nadal—plus the semis in Rio—with a win over David Ferrer—and then his first ATP500 title in Acapulco.
He afterwards commented, in his improving but careful English: “I always have this little protection that I’m still young, but I’m already 22, so not that young any more, and many even younger players are coming up, so this year and next year is when I really have to step up and play well at big tournaments.”
And he has. A first Grand Slam semi at Roland Garros was sandwiched by titles on the clay of Nice and the grass of Stuttgart—where, incidentally, he beat Roger Federer, albeit that the Swiss was returning from injury,
By late summer Thiem had played more matches than anyone on the tour, and took the decision to opt out of the Olympics to try and earn more ranking points.
If there was one question-mark, however, it was that packed schedule, and sure enough, the wins and stamina seemed to fall off during the autumn. From a high of No7 June, he ended up making the World Tour Finals by the skin of his teeth.
And his results have shown that he is worthy of his place. But he is only too aware that he is sandwiched between two generations vying for the rankings and the big titles.
The glass ceiling of the ‘big four’—Djokovic, Murray, Nadal and Federer—reinforced by late maturers such as Wawrinka, has proven tough to break through by the ‘90s generation’. Some have made the top 20, and a handful has edged inside or close to the top 10—Grigor Dimitrov, Goffin, and most notably one the oldest of those born in the 90s, Raonic himself, at a career-high No4.
Thiem is the youngest of them, but he is now hotly pursued by the ATP’s #NextGen, those around the 20-year-old mark: Nick Kyrgios and teenager Alexander Zverev have both tasted the top 20 and won titles.
Thiem is clearly very aware that he has no time to waste. He said after his big Acapulco victory: “It’s a very special era to have that many good players, but there are many young and promising players and, maybe not this year or next year, but it may [soon] be time for them, and I hope I am one of those to step up and break into the top four and win the big titles.”
Perhaps it is this sense of urgency that has spurred him on to such gut-busting effort.
“I think, first of all, I had a great off-season last year with very good tennis training, very good fitness training. Of course, in the beginning of the year I was winning a lot of close matches also against top guys like Nadal. If it wouldn’t go this way, probably I wouldn’t sit here at the Finals now. But I was really winning a lot of tight and close matches at the beginning. This was helping me to grow self-confidence, and develop my game.”
He is already the youngest man to win a match at this tournament since it moved to the O2 in 2009. And while he may not make the semis this week—and a win over Raonic on this faster-than-usual court, is a big ask—it is not entirely fanciful that he, like Raonic, could find a place among the top four this time next year.
Judging from the reaction of the London crowds this year, many hope he will.
As anticipated, Djokovic took little time, 69 minutes, 6-1, 6-2, to beat Goffin and extend his run in London to 21/22 match-wins through the last four years. His 200 points will temporarily take him ahead of Murray in the race to the year-end No1: Murray will try to go unbeaten in his group tomorrow afternoon—and try to head his group, thus avoiding Djokovic in the semis.