By Chris Oddo | Saturday August 1, 2015
Red-hot Dominic Thiem reached his second consecutive final, battling past Feliciano Lopez in three sets in Gstaad.
Photo Source: Croatian Open
21-year-old Dominic Thiem is loving the red clay of Europe this summer. The physical, fiery youngster steered his way past the savvy serve-and-volley stylings of Feliciano Lopez on Saturday to reach his second final in as many weeks, 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-3 at the Swiss Open Gstaad.
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Thiem held firm from the service line all afternoon, saving all three break points he faced, but he failed to contain Lopez in the second set tiebreaker.
The Spaniard hammered an inside-out forehand winner on his second set point to push Thiem to a decider.
But Lopez couldn’t complete the comeback.
Thiem took advantage of a few double-faults from Lopez in the seventh game and took his chances on return to seal the decisive break in the decider.
After another hold, his 14th in a row, Thiem broke to seal the match by placing a return at the feet of an onrushing Lopez. The 33-year-old could only get the frame of his racquet on the ball. It flew harmlessly into the stands leaving Thiem to celebrate his seventh consecutive victory.
The Austrian improves to 26-18 on the season (17-7 on clay).
Waiting for Thiem in Sunday’s final will be top-seeded David Goffin. The Belgian eased into his second final of the season with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over two-time champion Thomaz Bellucci.
Goffin didn’t face a break point all afternoon in notching his first career victory over the Brazilian.
He ripped three consecutive backhands to claim the initial break and a 5-4 lead in set one and proceeded to serve the opener out in the next game.
In the second set he reeled off four straight games to go from 1-1 to 5-1 and closed the match two games later without any complications.
Thiem and Goffin have met four times at the Tour-level with Goffin holding the 3-1 lifetime edge, including a three-set victory in the Kitzbuhel final last season.
Both Thiem and Goffin are bidding to become the fourth player born in the 1990’s to own three or more ATP titles. Milos Raonic (6), Grigor Dimitrov (4) and Bernard Tomic (3), are the players born after 1990 to have already reached three titles.