Thiem Beat Nadal At His Own Game

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Thiem Beat Nadal At His Own Game

Dominic Thiem dethroned Rafael Nadal on his home turf by beating the King of Clay at his own game.

The seventh-ranked Thiem swept Nadal in the Madrid quarterfinals snapping the Spaniard's 21-match clay-court winning streak and record 50 straight sets won on clay.

Watch: Nadal's Streak Dies

Running around his backhand, Thiem deployed his ballistic forehand to break down Nadal's backhand wing.

Afterward, Nadal said the imposing forehand to backhand pattern—the same pattern he's mastered winning a record 10 Roland Garros titles—was the key to Thiem's victory.

"When I was hitting my forehand to his backhand, he was good enough to rest and to send it back with a good ball," Nadal told the media in Madrid. "Of course, today my forehand was not good enough. I would say today whenever I tried to hit my backhand to his forehand, I was never in a good enough position to place the ball on the lines, to open the court. I wasn't putting myself in position. He always had position to move around and to play a good shot, to strike the ball in a comfortable position for hem.

"From there on, it's difficult to harm a player like him because he's a very powerful player, he has a lot of strength, he strikes the ball very hard, very violently. When you receive that ball, it's very difficult to respond.

"It's just will. If you don't strike the first balls good enough, it's very difficult to step into the game because his balls come really heavy. As I've said here, it's even heavier, because here I have the feeling it's not easy to respond to that ball. It's different to Monte-Carlo and Rome."

Though Thiem joined Novak Djokovic and Gaston Gaudio as just the third man to defeat the King of Clay three times on dirt, Nadal isn't branding the Austrian his toughest opponent.

"Well, three weeks ago I beat him 6-0, 6-3. I don't know if that's a tough player or not," Nadal said. "I don't think it's that way. I think it's just been a match that he was better than me, same as a few weeks ago I was better than him.

"This week, of course, he has been the toughest opponent. There is no discussion about that. This is the reality. If he beats me three times in a row, maybe we can say he reads my game and can beat me. Today he was better than me, and that's all."

Photo credit: Mutua Madrid Open Facebook

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