Thiem was successful at the 2020 US Open, grasping his opportunity after beating Alexander Zverev<\/a> in the final, Daniil Medvedev<\/a> in the semifinal and Alex de Minaur<\/a> in the quarterfinal. <\/p>\n The right-handed player reached number three in the world rankings, and Roger Federer<\/a> was always a big fan of the Austrian player\u2019s potential. <\/p>\n During the US Open<\/a> in 2017, it seemed like Federer would set up a quarterfinal date with Thiem at Flushing Meadows. <\/p>\n The legendary Swiss performer stayed true to his word and defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber, but Thiem was beaten \u2013 in surprising fashion at the time \u2013 by Juan Martin del Potro<\/a>. <\/p>\n In his post-match press conference, Federer was asked to say something about Thiem, and it\u2019s clear that the 20-time Grand Slam winner saw the potential. <\/p>\n He said: \u201cSweet guy. Really honest. Lovely to be around with. Hard working. Super hard working. He goes into the Rafa demographic, where, between matches, they just go really hard. I\u2019m not like that, so I admire those guys who put their heads down and work this hard.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I love his backhand. Played him a few times. Got great power in both wings. He\u2019s a power player that we have in the game. Yeah, he\u2019s going to be around for a long time. He\u2019s going to install himself in the top 10 easily, in my opinion, for the next 10 years. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s going to create a lot of chances to win the biggest tournaments in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Dominic Thiem came close to more Grand Slam success<\/p>\n Thiem was a vastly underrated player, and it\u2019s no surprise he wowed Federer during his career. <\/p>\n With a little bit more luck, he might have become a serial Grand Slam winner, reaching finals at the French Open<\/a> in 2018 and 2019, losing on both occasions to Rafael Nadal<\/a>, and he also made the 2020 Australian Open<\/a> final. <\/p>\n Thiem managed 17 career titles, though, and as a former number three in world tennis, he can look back on a fond career. <\/p>\n Although Thiem never managed to win more than one Grand Slam, he was the sort of player who mixed it with the top guys and maintained a lofty position in the rankings across a number of years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominic Thiem called time on his playing career last year after a brilliant time playing professional tennis. Thiem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[32230,4037,99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-166404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-dominic-thiem","9":"tag-roger-federer","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Roger](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-77933648-1024x699.jpg\")
Photo by Rob Tringali\/Sportschrome\/Getty ImagesWhat Roger Federer predicted about Dominic Thiem in 2017<\/p>\n