Dominic Thiem Reveals Why He Changed His Longtime Coach

The Austrian, Dominic Thiem made changes in his team this year and those changes produced a positive outcome in his career. He split with his then-coach, Gunter Bresnik after 15 years of working together and appointed the former Olympic champion, Nicolas Massu in his team.

“I think it was necessary to make a change,” Dominic Thiem said. “I had unbelievable success and unbelievable road with my old coach, but there was a moment where I needed something new, to develop my personality, to develop my game on the court and I was trying out with Nico.”

Post his collaboration with Massu, the clay-courter, Dominic Thiem pulled off the biggest title of his career on the hard-court of Indian Wells. He beat Roger Federer in the finals for his first ATP Masters 1000 title.

“The first tournament that we had was Indian Wells. Then I realized he’s bringing very good stuff to my game, he’s able to develop my game in the right direction and the most important thing was we had good chemistry between us. He’s a great guy, very good character and I’m happy to be with him and looking forward to having a good time with him,” the two-time major finalist continued.

His coach, Massu is well-known so his stellar performance at the 2004 Olympics. The Chilean, Massu won gold medals in the singles and doubles the domain of tennis. He is the first and so far the only athlete from Chile to win multiple gold medals in the history of the Olympic Games. The same year, Massu’s ranking shot to number nine.

“Indian Wells was just amazing because I came from a very tough period, I’d just split up with my coach, so everything came together,” Dominic Thiem said. “I somehow freed myself and won the tournament, somehow. I didn’t know why that happened, that was amazing, my first ATP Masters 1000 title, I didn’t expect it.”

This year, Dominic Thiem collected a massive sum of five ATP titles and which include two titles on his home turf of Austria. In 2019, he had victories over Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.

At ATP World Tour Finals 2019, Dominic Thiem will open against the third seed, Roger Federer. It’s his fourth successive qualification at the Nitto ATP Finals. On his three previous visits to Greenwich, he has won just one match each time and exited in the group stages on every occasion. However, this year Dominic Thiem with a new mindset, a new coach and new confidence might make a difference.