Luciano Darderi closes Dominic Thiem’s career.

Luciano Darderi beats Dominic Thiem in the Austrian's last career match

Luciano Darderi'll be remembered as Dominic Thiem's last opponent on the professional circuit: the Italian, number 42 in the world rankings, in fact defeated the 2020 US Open champion in the first round of the Vienna ATP, the last tournament Thiem decided to play as a professional before his announced retirement from the scene.

Thiem struggled not a little to extend his career at least by a couple of days, especially in the first set: ahead by a break at 3-2, he, however, suffered the comeback of the Italian-Argentinean, who was able to take the fraction to the tie-break. In the decisive mini-game Thiem è also led 3-0, but an 8-3 partial break in favor of Darderi closed the set in the latter's favor.

Very different was the course of the second game fraction: Darderi immediately won a game on serve from the former world No. 3 (now ranked 318th), went ahead to 5-1 and closed two games later, thus going on to win a place in the round of 16 of the Austrian tournament.

Thus, the curtain falls on Dominic Thiem’s career: winner of the 2020 US Open, the Austrian has also been a two-time finalist at Roland Garros (2018 and 2019) and a one-time finalist at the Australian Open (2020), finding in his way the holy monsters Rafa Nadal in Paris and Novak Djokovic in Malbourne. He was also twice a member of Team Europe that won the Laver Cup, in 2017 and 2019.