In the third round of Roland Garros, Fabio faces the Austrian. From the exploits at Wimbledon 2017 to the satisfactions in the Futures and Challengers. He is trained by Dominic’s father and prefers hard courts to clay
There is a Thiem behind the results of Sebastian Ofner, Fabio Fognini’s next opponent at Roland Garros. No, it’s not Dominic, who represents a point of reference for his compatriot and has always pushed the class of ’96, spending words of esteem in the years in which Ofner began to be a name that was at least talked about in the world tennis scene. The Thiem who contributes to chiseling Ofi’s tennis (this is the nickname) is Wolfgang, father of the 2020 US Open champion, coach of the native of Bruck An Der Mur (in Styria) together with Stefan Rettl, Sebastian’s reference figure for almost twenty years.
the exploit
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Rettl is Ofner’s coach on the circuit and has been joined since last autumn by Georg Mrkvicka, who takes care of the 27-year-old’s physical and athletic side. Thiem senior works in the shadows and who knows if he has noticed a possible scenario at Roland Garros: if Ofner were to beat Fognini, he would overtake Dominic in the standings, moving to around 80th position in the ranking. Quite a leap: he entered the tournament as number 118 in the world, passed the qualifiers and in the first two rounds he beat two Americans with a decidedly stronger name than him, Maxime Cressy and Sebastian Korda.
in 2017 at wimbledon
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A slam-level exploit that is nothing new for Ofner. We have to go back in time, to 2017, Wimbledon. The Austrian had never played on grass or in an ATP tournament in his career. He entered the qualifiers as number 216 in the world, gained access to the main draw but went much further: victory in the first round against Thomaz Bellucci (number 55 in the world) and triumph in five sets against Jack Sock, 18th ranking player. He then lost to Sascha Zverev, but the world knew him. Or rather, he found out. Until a couple of years ago he was still on the books, he began to devote himself constantly to tennis at the age of 19, once he finished his high school studies. There are those who at that age are already at the top of the standings, while he had accumulated only about twenty games at Futures level.
the profile
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The Wimbledon exploit was followed by the semifinal in Kitzbuehel, with wild cards. However, Ofner’s promise can be said to have not been kept: he had entered the top-150 but then slipped down, week after week. Few victories at ATP level, eight tournaments brought home between Futures (5) and Challenger (3, the last one in Prague last year), also surgery on his left foot in October 2021 and Achilles tendon problems . This year he lost four finals out of four in the Challengers, beating interesting players like Shevchenko (defeated a few hours ago by Musetti), Marozsan (the Hungarian who defeated Alcaraz in Rome), our Giannessi and Stricker, the Swiss protagonist at November at the Next Gen finals. The ranking has grown slowly, even without playing matches at ATP level this year before this Roland Garros. The goal at the beginning of the season was to reach the top 100 and it is almost there, which could allow Ofner to gradually detach himself from the Challenger circuit which, according to him last year, “is neglected by the ATP”. Ah, little draft for Fognini: the ATP website cannot be trusted. In Ofner’s bio it is written that the preferred surface is clay, “but they haven’t updated it: I prefer concrete”.
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