In a huge upset, No. 1 seed Dominic Thiem crashed out of the Dubai Tennis Championships in the first round. Thiem lost to the South African qualifier Lloyd Harris in straight sets and made another early exit from a tournament this month.

The desert swing has ended in disappointment for Thiem, with him losing in the second round of the 2021 Qatar Open last week.

Dominic Thiem is seeing a tough time

In fact, since winning his maiden Grand Slam title at the 2020 US Open, Thiem has had a string of poor performances subsequently.

After the US Open triumph, Thiem entered the 2020 French Open as one of the favorites to win the title since he has finished as the runner-up in the previous two years before that.

However, Thiem lost to Diego Schwartzman in the quarterfinals in a thrilling five-set match. The Australian looked exhausted in the last set and couldn’t cope physically.

Thereafter, Thiem again lost in the quarterfinals at the 2020 Vienna Open to the eventual champion Andrey Rublev. Fast forward to this year, where the 27-year-old started his Australian Open campaign impressively.

After winning against Nick Kyrgios in an epic five-setter in the third round, Thiem appeared in top form going into the latter stages.

However, Thiem’s humiliating loss to Grigor Dimitrov in the following match came as a shock. Dimitrov pulverized Thiem in straight sets with the last set being a bagel.

In conclusion, Thiem has been experiencing some fitness concerns since he hasn’t coped well physically on the court lately. Going by his standards, Thiem’s form has also dipped, which has resulted in some early-round exits.

Having withdrawn from the upcoming Miami Open, Thiem plans to reset after a tough few months and prepare well for the European clay-court season.

With the clay-court season the most physically demanding, Thiem needs to work on his fitness and endurance levels to compete at the highest stages.