Dominic Thiem

In September 2020, the stranglehold of the Big Three was finally broken. After 14 successive Grand Slam titles won by Federer, Nadal and Djokovic – and the previous 41 majors won by just six men – Dominic Thiem won the US Open 2020 to announce the arrival of a new generation. The 27-year-old Austrian entered at 0-3 in major finals, losing two French Open finals to Rafael Nadal and the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic. It had appeared he would lose as the favorite to Zverev, the 23-year-old German also seeking his first career major title in his first Slam final. But Thiem hung around and hung around and ultimately prevailed over the fellow German Zverev, 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(6) to capture that elusive first Grand Slam title. It was the first time since Pancho Gonzales in 1949 that a man came back from two sets down to win the final.

Thiem became the first male player born in the 1990s to claim a Grand Slam singles title, as well as the first Austrian to win the US Open singles title. He is the second-highest ranked Austrian player in history, behind former world No. 1 Thomas Muster. He has won 17 ATP Tour singles titles. 

Thiem was born in Wiener Neustadt, Austria on 3 September 1993 to Wolfgang and Karin Thiem, both of whom are tennis coaches. He has a younger brother, Moritz Thiem, who is also a professional tennis player. Thiem grew up in Lichtenwörth and began playing tennis when he was six years old. Thiem's father, Wolfgang, began working as a coach at Günter Bresnik's academy in Vienna in 1997, when Thiem was just three years old. Bresnik became Thiem's coach formally from age nine. It was Bresnik who advised the change of Thiem's two-handed backhand to a one-handed backhand when he was 12 years old. Bresnik has said that Thiem's junior results took a dip for about a year while the stroke developed.

Thiem has some of the biggest groundstrokes of the tour, consistently hitting big with both his forehand and his single handed backhand. Generally thought of as a baseliner he has added more variety with the use of slice backhand and more netplay since adding coach Nicolás Massú to his team in March 2019.

As a junior, Thiem was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world. He was runner-up at the 2011 French Open Boys tournament, and won the 2011 Orange Bowl. As a professional, he broke into the top 100 for the first time in 2014. In 2015, he won his first ATP title at the 2015 Open de Nice Côte d'Azur in France. The next year he reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2016 French Open. In doing so, he first entered the top ten of the world rankings, where he has since been a permanent fixture. He went on to reach his first ATP Tour Masters 1000 final in 2017 at the Madrid Open, before reaching his first Grand Slam final the following year. Thiem won his first Masters 1000 title at the 2019 Indian Wells Masters, beating Roger Federer in the final.

Grand Slam Singles record:

Australian open: F (2020)

French Open: F (2018, 2019)

Wimbledon: 4R (2017)

US Open: W (2020)