Tennis: Czech Vesely sinks eighth seed Thiem in battle of tiebreaks

Reuters

Published Jun 30, 2016 04:56PM ET

Tennis: Czech Vesely sinks eighth seed Thiem in battle of tiebreaks

By John Stonestreet

LONDON (Reuters) - Unseeded Czech Jiri Vesely won a battle of the tiebreaks to sink Austrian eighth seed Dominic Thiem in three tough sets in the second round at Wimbledon on Thursday.

Bets placed on a clash between two exciting players from the emerging tennis generation would have been weighted towards the Austrian.

His top-10 ranking consolidated at the French Open with a run to the semi-finals, Thiem had won 18 of the 28 tiebreaks he has played this year while the 64th-ranked Czech had lost 12 of his 16.

Thiem had also come out on top in the two previous main tour matches between the 22-year-olds and had won seven of eight outings on grass this year, including an inaugural title on the surface in this month's Wimbledon warm-up tournament in Stuttgart.

But in a pulsating 2-3/4-hour encounter during which both players successfully varied their game, punctuating long baseline rallies with bouts of serve-and-volley and the occasional dropshot, the pressure of holding a misfiring serve eventually told on Thiem.

He conceded all three of the decisive points in Vesely's 7-6(4) 7-6(5) 7-6(3) win on forehand errors -- having earlier passed up three break points in the 11th game of the first set.

The Czech will play Portuguese 31st seed Joao Sousa in the third round.