Dominic Thiem in favor of replacing deciding set with match tiebreak on regular tour
Dominic Thiem has had a heavy schedule of exhibition tournaments ahead of the restart of the tennis season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Austrian picked up the trophy in the first stage of the Adria Tour, before winning the Austrian Pro Series in his home country.
The World No. 3 then played host at his own invitational tournament "Thiem's 7" in Kitzbuhel, Austria, where he lost in the final to Russian star Andrey Rublev. That was before he landed in Berlin, Germany to play the Bett1Aces exhibition tournament, the final of which he is set to play on Wednesday against Matteo Berrettini.
In the middle of all this Dominic Thiem also traveled to Nice to play in the Ultimate Tennis Showdown, which had a format that is vastly different from traditional tennis.
Despite claiming to prefer the traditional format, Thiem believes there are a few innovations from the new-age exhibitions that, if introduced on the tour, can make matches more exciting for the fans.
The new format could be used in the early rounds of the tour: Dominic Thiem
In a press conference after his semifinal win over Jannik Sinner, the Austrian said he would welcome the introduction of a match tiebreak of 10 points in place of the deciding set at all tournaments.
"I still prefer the common scoring format," Dominic Thiem asserted. "Though I would welcome a match tiebreak in the third set. This format could also be built in from time to time in the early rounds of the tour, as it creates a lot of excitement for the audience."
Currently, the match tiebreak comes into play only during doubles events at one-set all. Singles, meanwhile, has normal seven-point tiebreaks after 6-6 in the deciding set, although the most recent and memorable one was at 12-12 - in the 2019 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
The match was tied at two sets each and featured 24 games in the fifth, before going into a deciding set tiebreak for the first time in the illustrious history of SW19. Djokovic won that tiebreak to bag his fifth Wimbledon trophy, after having saved championship points earlier in the set.
The Australian Open has also launched a 10-point match tiebreak if the deciding set is tied at 6-6. The US Open on the other hand has always had a normal tiebreak at 6-6 in the deciding set of a match.
Dominic Thiem himself has played one of the more memorable deciding set tiebreaks at the US Open, in his 2018 quarterfinal defeat to Rafael Nadal. The 26-year-old took the first set 6-0, but eventually bowed out to Nadal 6-0 4-6 5-7 7-6 6-7.
Having a match tiebreak instead of a full deciding set on the regular tour would shorten the match duration considerably, and also bring in more unpredictable results. But given how successful the current format already is, Dominic Thiem's suggestion might not find too many takers.
The Ultimate Tennis Showdown also had a new scoring format for games and set, but Thiem believes that should be restricted to exhibition events.
"On the regular tour, you should leave it as it is," Thiem said.