Mutua Madrid Open, Spain

Men’s Final: [3] Alexander Zverev (GER) vs. [7] Dominic Thiem (AUT)

For the second consecutive year, Thiem misses out on his opportunity to hoist the Mutua Madrid Open trophy.  Last year, Rafael Nadal got the best of him. This year after he dispatched of Nadal in the quarterfinals he must have felt that he would get it done. However, he did not count on the dominant serving from his opponent.

Thiem had lost only once to Zverev before and had never lost to him on clay. Yet, Zverev has been in all of their matches, having won at least one set in the matches he lost. Today, there would be no repeat of his last encounter against the Austrian. Zverev took the lead early and never relinquished it.  He was dominant in every serving statistic and never gave Thiem an opportunity to break him.

Thiem was probably mentally flat after expending so much emotional energy to defeat two opponents back-to-back; opponents who had a winning record against him. Zverev has continued to impress with his willingness to improve his game and mentally he gets stronger with each match played. He was not daunted by the prospect of playing an opponent he had a losing record against. The knowledge that this was the guy who ended the streak of the most dominant player on clay also had no impact on the German’s plan of attack.

Yet, having a plan and implementing it is not always easy. Zverev may have made it look easy against a player quite adept on clay and gifted defensively; however, it was not. He stayed focused the entire match and never lost sight of his objective. His confidence grew with each point won and he closed out the match in straight sets without any hesitation.

The 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Thiem gave Zverev his third Masters 1000 title and his second on clay.

SOURCE OF IMAGE: serveandrally