Dominic Thiem, the retirement interview (part 1): Life after tennis, and how UTS kickstarted US Open run
In an exclusive interview, the Austrian tells Tennis Majors what life will look like for him after tennis and looks back on his run to Grand Slam glory
© Tristan Lapierre for Tennis Majors / UTS
Dominic, you are living your last days as a professional tennis player. Is each day like a regular day at the office or do you feel it’s really the end?
Dominic Thiem: Today was a regular day at the office, but the last days were really exciting actually, and also emotional. Ten days ago there was the Austrian Athlete of the Year awards. I got a special award, which was amazing. The award is named after Niki Lauda, the Formula One racer from Austria. And there were also quite a lot of things to do the last days. So they were exciting, emotional, but also, letting me see and letting me know that it’s coming towards the end of my career. But today was like a regular day in the office, like I had plenty of them, with good practice in the morning and now this interview.
What was especially emotional about the award?
Dominic Thiem: First of all, I was in front of all the best Austrian athletes, which was amazing. The Olympic champions from Paris, the best athletes from winter sports, from summer sports. And then I was on the stage and the football player David Alaba was giving me the award, which was really nice because he’s a special personality . So that meant a lot to me. And then also the organisers had a video from Rafa (Nadal), Roger (Federer) and Novak (Djokovic). They were saying very nice words to me. So everything together, I’ll remember forever.
What do you expect from yourself at UTS Frankfurt and the last event of your career in Vienna?
Dominic Thiem: Honestly, I was practising a little bit less after the US Open and, unfortunately, I’m a kind of player who is losing the level pretty fast. There are players who come back very quickly after an injury, they play amazing. It’s not the case with me. I have to practise a lot to play well. So I started to practise well two weeks ago, let’s say.
I want to play well in Frankfurt and also in Vienna, considering it’s more of a competition and a farewell moment, you have to be expected. It would be super nice to get a win, a match win, either in Frankfurt or in Vienna, because the last match win was at Roland-Garros qualies. So it’s quite a while ago.
It would be super nice to get a win
Dominic Thiem
What will you do the day and the weeks after your last tennis tournament? Do you already have a precise idea of what you will become in November, December, January? Or is it still not settled?
Dominic Thiem: Yes, I’m already, or we are already, working as a team. Since the decision is made that I’m going to retire with the Vienna week, we already started two main projects.
One is Thiem Energy, clean electricity from the sun, a project that I believe is for common good. Everybody can join it in Austria now, maybe one (day) internationally. And it’s a lot of work to do, actually.
There is also our tennis academy. I think I can have some weeks off to get a little bit of distance from tennis. But then I really want to help young players to develop and to make the step from a junior to a professional player. I want to give back to tennis, as tennis gave me so much.
On a cold, rainy, foggy day I will also take time to just sit down all by myself and to reflect on my career because, so many things happened, so many great experiences happened. Everything is going very fast. Even, for example, when I was injured, the whole focus was to recover and to get back as fast as possible. So there was never time to really reflect or to work through all the emotions. So for sure I want to do this as well.
On a cold, rainy, foggy day I will also take time to just sit down all by myself and to reflect on my career
Dominic Thiem
Will we see you as a coach on Tour some day? Or as a commentator? Something on Tour?
Dominic Thiem: In the future I don’t know but right now, I don’t want to or I’m not planning to come back as a touring coach. I’m a bit tired of travelling, especially far away. And there are way better tennis coaches than me. But for sure, I had a lot of experiences which can be very helpful for young players. Especially, I would say in the age from 15 to 20 or 21, when there’s a lot going on and you have to make that step. I didn’t come up that fast like, for example, Carlos Alcaraz or many other young players. It took a while. I had to suffer a lot as well. I’m planning more on this. I want to help Austrian players or even others. The academy is international. So, yeah, it doesn’t matter from where the players are coming.
Is retirement something you’ve talked about with other players of your generation or the previous one – I don’t know, maybe, Roger, maybe, Rafa? Did you share thoughts with other members of the Tour about it, about how to manage this?
Dominic Thiem: Not yet. On the Tour, there’s just too little time and, as well, everybody’s like in the competition mode. You don’t really want to talk about this stuff during a tournament. Hopefully, maybe later. On my part I talked to Andreas Schurrle, a German footballer who retired as well pretty early around 29. No matter the sport, it’s pretty much the same. I knew he was the guy I wanted to talk with.
Your penultimate tournament will be at UTS. You have a special story with the tournament because you said yes to the first edition in 2020 when you were No 3 in the world. Why did you trust the concept so fast?
Dominic Thiem: It was during COVID, so every competition which was possible was interesting. I always loved new concepts. This one was very different. It was a big change with the quarters, the cards, the live coaching. It was a very easy decision to go there. Above all it’s a very serious competition, exactly what I needed. It was like one-and-a-half months before the Tour came back. The intensity of the game is really helpful.
UTS is a very serious competition. It’s pretty far away from an exhibition
Dominic Thiem
Do you have a clear memory of it?
Dominic Thiem: Yes. It’s still very fresh. I lost the first match against Richard Gasquet. He was playing really well, and then I beat Stefanos (Tsitsipas) and Matteo (Berrettini) as well. (David Goffin also, editor’s note). It gave me a lot of confidence for the US Open. I was pretty nervous before the first match because nobody knew how it would be going. After the first quarter, I thought it was unbelievable how tough it is physically, because I was in really good shape back then. I was maybe physically at my peak.
You used spontaneously the word “competition” when talking about UTS. Not everybody does.
Dominic Thiem: I think to me and to all the other players, it’s a normal tournament. It’s pretty far away from an exhibition. We do quite a lot of stuff together with the other players before the matches. The skill day together before, there’s quite a lot of trash talk happening. So, like, the competition part gets bigger and bigger every day. When the tournament finally starts, everybody wants to go out and basically keep the eyes of the opponent because of the days before, of all the trash talk of the skill games.
Because it’s so different, I really want to win it. It’s a bit easier to play than the regular Tour because there are just no thoughts coming out, everything is way too fast. It’s too fast to have, I mean, bad feelings in 15 seconds. If you lose a quarter or even two, you can still win.
if you have never played it, maybe you expect something a bit different
Dominic Thiem
Was it part of your build-up before the 2020 US Open? Your match against Stefanos Tsitsipas was quite impressive.
Dominic Thiem: This competition was definitely a part of my build up to the US Open. Stefanos and I were both in quite good shape. We were both kind of ready to come back to play competitive tennis. And we could see that in the match. It was a very high level, great tennis. And of course like always at UTS, a very close score. It was very important also for the confidence.
What’s the part of your game that the UTS rules highlight, in the best or the worst way?
Dominic Thiem: The matches were getting really tough physically, I can hit like, the kind of situation where you can try winners out of nowhere. I was just going for the shot and the chances were high to make it. Now we have only one service, which is suiting me, I think, because I’m not the best returner in the game. So those two parts are very good for me. And the bad part, I don’t know, I haven’t discovered yet, but I think that for all the players, we see the very good parts.
What are your memories from Oslo in Febraury 2024, which unfortunately you couldn’t finish?
Dominic Thiem: First that the stadium was packed, because back then there was nobody attending during the pandemic time. Hopefully we could now play in a full stadium. I had two hard matches against Holger Rune and Alexander Bublik. Against Holger it was amazing. It was a very nice memory. But at the same time, I got really sick on the second day and I was not able [to compete] anymore.
Against Holger you made this unbelievable tweener to counterpunch a dropshot, which UTS legend now. Tell us how you took that decision and how you decided to make it.
Dominic Thiem: I remember that point. And I also knew that it has a very high chance to be efficient because, I think it was towards the end of the quarter. We were both tired, and I saw that Holger ran in the corner. I played this shot a lot in practice and I knew I could make it. I just knew that if I’m going to make it, there’s a very high chance that it’s going to be a winner. I was also at my physical limits already, and I wanted to finish the point on my terms.
UTS is looking to develop and have more and more events in the future. If you had to introduce UTS to the other guys in the field, how would you describe it?
Dominic Thiem: I would use maybe one word for describing this: “intense”. Because everything is intense. Two matches a day. Only 15 seconds in between the points. You are really at your physical limits towards the end of the quarters.
And, to be honest, if you have never played it, maybe you expect something a bit different. You see it on the TV. Players seem relaxed and they laugh a lot and there’s an amazing atmosphere. It looks cool. But if you play, it’s so intense. This is what I would say to a player, because if he doesn’t know that, he can be really surprised at how tough it is at the end.
