Dominic Thiem, Novak Djokovic showdown coming to 2016 French Open
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Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych both advanced at the 2016 French Open on Wednesday. Djokovic, in what was a rain-delayed match, defeated Roberto Bautista-Agut in four sets. Berdych had very little trouble in his match, eliminating David Ferrer in very routine straight sets. Those two results set up a not-so-intriguing quarterfinal between Djokovic and Berdych. However, there could be a much more intriguing match-up developing between Djokovic and Dominic Thiem.
Looking ahead at the Thursday quarterfinal between Djokovic and Berdych, the two players have met a total of 25 times in their careers, and the results are terribly one-sided in favor of the Serb. The current World No. 1 holds a 23-2 lead on head-to-heads, including a 10-match winning streak dating back to the 2013 Rome Masters.
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If Berdy wanted to try to ground some confidence in their past results, it would be from the Rome match as it was played on clay. Furthermore, the Czech No. 1 actually beat Djokovic in a bigger match than a Grand Slam quarterfinal as Berdych defeated Djokovic in the Wimbledon semis in 2010.
Berdych’s play in Paris has made the double-bagel loss to David Goffin from a few weeks ago ancient history. However, it is very difficult to see the Czech player coming through against Djokovic. I don’t find a straight-sets victory over Ferrer to be all that convincing anymore as the Spaniard is clearly trending downward on tour.
Looking at the draw from Djokovic’s perspective, there’s a pretty clear path to the final now with perhaps Thiem the major obstacle. Thiem is into his first career quarterfinal after defeating Marcel Granollers in a section of the draw that Rafael Nadal withdrew from.
Thiem will next face Goffin in an intriguing battle between two players, neither of which has made a Grand Slam quarterfinal before. By my calculations the winner between Goffin and Thiem debuts in the Top 10 with the post-French Open rankings. But regardless of which of them advances if Djokovic defeats Berdych, as projected, then the World No. 1 would have an opponent in the semis with no experience playing this deep in a major.
If you were to pick a player to upset Djokovic before the final, then it would be Thiem. The 22-year-old Austrian is someone I profiled as a future No. 1 player a little while back. He’s still making some mistakes against peripheral players, with three dropped sets through the opening rounds. However he hasn’t had a close call yet, he has multiple clay-court titles in ATP events on tour this year, and he’s clearly the best player on tour right now born in the 1990s. Furthermore, Thiem does have the ‘elevation ability’ – when the going gets tough, his game improves drastically.
Looking at the top half of the draw, Djokovic against Berdych is a 95% dunk for the Serb while Thiem should beat Goffin more often than not. If everything holds up as expected, then the semifinals will feature the current World No. 1 against a player that is clearly emerging as a major challenger for the bigger events. That’s the age-old scenario in tennis where a young-up-and-comer either plows ahead at the expense of a veteran or is forced to wait a little bit longer.
Djokovic and Berdych open the order of play for Philippe-Chatrier Court on Thursday (1 pm local time) while Thiem and Goffin will meet at the same time on Suzanne-Lenglen Court. Spots in the semifinals are at stake with Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray already through on the bottom half of the draw.
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