Former Champion Dominic Thiem Says Goodbye at U.S. Open

The 2020 winner fell to Ben Shelton in the first round at Flushing Meadows, playing his final match at the major before his forthcoming retirement.

The 30-year-old Austrian fell to American Ben Shelton in the first round of the 2024 U.S. Open. / Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

As every high school coach and gym teacher likes to point out: There’s no I in team.

In Dominic Thiem, there is an I … but not an ego.

As fine a player as Austria has produced, he achieved plenty. But 30-year-old Thiem—who played his last major match Monday at the U.S. Open—might be best remembered for his modesty and amiable personality. Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” In tennis, there was a corollary: No one ever met Dominic Theim and didn’t like him.

Thiem after playing his final match at the US Open

Dominic: “First thank you so much for all your support all those years. It’s been 10 years since I first played here. It’s actually really important moment for me. I had my greatest success here on this court in this weird 2020… pic.twitter.com/yyj7I5o0ID

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) August 26, 2024

He burst on the scene as a teenager, known for zinging and flinging that one-handed backhand, and for practicing harder and longer than most others.

By his early 20s, he was embedded in the top 20, then the top 10. By his mid-20s, he was reliably in the business end of majors. His breakthrough came at the 2020 U.S. Open. Down two sets to love to Alexander Zverev in the final, Thiem won a wild and uneven five-setter. In other times, the crowd would have gone wild. Except this time, thanks to pandemic protocols, there was no crowd.

Critics would point out that Thiem won his major without having to face Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic. Spun more generously, the fact that he won his one and only major during COVID-19—with all its hurdles and distractions—says so much about his professionalism.

As if he had made a pact with the devil, Thiem was never the same player after that. It would be the last title—of any size—he would win. He struggled with injuries and, not unrelatedly, confidence. 

Through it all, he remained good-natured about his fate, optimistic, realistic and never bitter or looking to shift blame. Barely 30 years old, he has decided to walk away. Not, perhaps, the end he would have chosen to author. But this was a worthy career. Not least because of the way Dominic Thiem conducted himself.