{"id":1757,"date":"2017-02-25T10:21:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T15:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/?p=1757"},"modified":"2017-02-26T10:46:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T15:46:13","slug":"dominic-thiem-rio-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/02\/25\/dominic-thiem-rio-semifinals\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominic Thiem Leads The Way Into Rio Semi-Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Second seed\u00a0<strong>Dominic Thiem\u00a0<\/strong>advanced to the semifinals at the\u00a0<strong>Rio Open\u00a0<\/strong>with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Argentine\u00a0<strong>Diego Schwartzman.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Austrian looked in fine form in reaching his first semifinal of the year, breaking Schwartzman&#8217;s serve six times. He&#8217;ll face fifth seed\u00a0<strong>Albert Ramos-Vinolas\u00a0<\/strong>in the last four after the Spaniard recorded a 6-2, 6-3 win over another Argentine, qualifier\u00a0<strong>Nicolas Kicker.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Dominic Thiem sharp in moving on<\/h2>\n<p>The second seed was pleased with his performance. &#8220;There were many opportunities for him, but I&#8217;m happy the way I played on his break points,&#8221; Thiem said. &#8220;I think it was my best performance here in Rio.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was also pleased to be competing on clay, where he&#8217;s won five of his seven career titles:\u00a0&#8220;I&#8217;m really happy to be back on clay. It fits my game, for sure,&#8221; Thiem said. &#8220;It&#8217;s really good that I&#8217;m back on clay because my shots have a lot of power.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He produced the shot of the year so far, a tweener from behind the baseline. Understandably, he was proud of his effort on that particular point:\u00a0&#8220;It was the best shot I&#8217;ve ever hit in my life,&#8221; Thiem said proudly.<\/p>\n<p>This is the second career meeting between Ramos-Vinolas and Thiem with the Spaniard posting an easy 6-1, 6-4 win in the quarterfinals of\u00a0<strong>Chengdu\u00a0<\/strong>last fall.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Just brilliant from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThiemDomi\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ThiemDomi<\/a> ?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TweenerAlert?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TweenerAlert<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1eRqsLkxa8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/1eRqsLkxa8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tennis TV (@TennisTV) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisTV\/status\/835233000149434369\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 24, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Surprise participant crashes the last four<\/h2>\n<p>The other semifinal will feature fourth seed\u00a0<strong>Pablo Carreno Busta\u00a0<\/strong>and the surprise of the tournament, Norwegian teenager\u00a0<strong>Casper Ruud.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ruud, ranked 208th in the world, easily handled Brazilian\u00a0<strong>Thiago Monteiro\u00a0<\/strong>6-2, 7-6 (2). Ruud rallied from a 2-5 deficit in the second set and proceeded to dominate the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p>Carreno Busta had a much tougher match with\u00a0<strong>Alexandr Dolgopolov<\/strong>,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>who beat him in the semifinals of\u00a0<strong>Buenos Aires\u00a0<\/strong>last week.<\/p>\n<p>After the fourth-seeded Spaniard notched the first set tiebreak 7-4, it was the Ukranian who struck back with an easy 7-2 second set tiebreak win. One game and three points were played before Dolgopolov retired with a left hip injury.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/645097784\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/645097784?et=dFE6b52BSONo9CxXv1kzvQ&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=cAzdh_f6ss41yafq_SVqXIbovpzWBFq_hu0pQp_BOOQ=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<h2>Keys to the semifinals<\/h2>\n<p>If Dominic Thiem is to have success against Albert Ramos-Vinolas, he&#8217;ll need to impose his heavy groundstrokes, especially his backhand to counteract his opponent&#8217;s fine lefty serve.<\/p>\n<p>Ramos-Vinolas is most comfortable on clay and he&#8217;ll feel confident with a prior win over the Austrian on his weaker surface.<\/p>\n<p>In the other semifinal, Ruud will be feeling no pressure as he enters the match against Carreno Busta as the underdog, much as he did in his previous three matches.<\/p>\n<p>For Carreno Busta, he&#8217;ll look at this as a golden opportunity to win his second career title, his confidence high with a second straight semifinal appearance.<\/p>\n<p>Both players play steady baseline games and the key will be who can hold serve more and who will manage their nerves better as they meet for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/645048546\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 73.232323% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/645048546?et=eyO6rYrbR3ts5e2s4K2lGw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=lk3RNtErt95g0wsxS1LUXVZkTENPskSMlqSx-_lacSM=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"435\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second seed\u00a0Dominic Thiem\u00a0advanced to the semifinals at the\u00a0Rio Open\u00a0with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Argentine\u00a0Diego Schwartzman.\u00a0 The Austrian looked in fine form in reaching his first semifinal of the year, breaking Schwartzman&#8217;s serve six times. He&#8217;ll face fifth seed\u00a0Albert Ramos-Vinolas\u00a0in the last four after the Spaniard recorded a 6-2, 6-3 win over another Argentine, qualifier\u00a0Nicolas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":755,"featured_media":1768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[450,811,208,91,48],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","tag-albert-ramos-vinolas","tag-casper-ruud","tag-dominic-thiem","tag-pablo-carreno-busta","tag-tennis"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}