You know, we fondly hype all the coulda woulda shoulda’s on this forum, it’s what we do, but I’m not sure any are quite as ridiculously over the top as Dominic Thiem.
I think Roland Garros ‘19, mentally outperforming Djokovic in the wind, that (and the first two sets of the final that followed) was basically the highlight of his career.
He’s this guy who would play amazing tennis (Nadal AO 2020, those two Djokovic WTF matches, etc.) until he’d get to finals, and then… He was like a new age Soderling in that way.
His collapse in the 2020 Aussie Open Final was heinous, making Tsitsipas look mentally strong in the 2019 WTF Final was worse, and even the major he stumbled ass backward into not losing, I mean how bad did Zverev have to be in order for him to get away with it? And then what happened? He went to Roland Garros and he was TIRED? What?!
He didn’t have the nerve to accomplish anymore more than he did, no matter how nice his game was to watch. If he had stayed healthy in 2021 I feel like the 3 main Next Gen guys were all going to pass him by.