Dominic Thiem produced his best performance of the season on Thursday at the Millennium Estoril Open where he cruised past #NextGenATP American Ben Shelton 6-2, 6-2 to reach his first quarter-final of the year.
The Austrian earned a confidence-boosting victory against countryman Sebastian Ofner in the first round and backed that up with a dominant display against Shelton. He crushed the ball off both wings to overpower the American, earning consecutive tour-level wins for the first time since he advanced to the semi-finals in Antwerp in October.
"The higher the ball bounces the better for me. Today was great with the warm weather," Thiem said in his on-court interview following his 63-minute win. "Not windy. The courts are pretty fast and dry and take the spin very well. It suites my game pretty good and I am excited to play the quarter-finals tomorrow.
"I am playing better and better. Just the results in the first part of the season were not there. This part of the season I love it. The European clay-court season."
The former World No. 3 will aim to continue his run when he takes on fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut or Quentin Halys in the last eight. Thiem is up eight spots to No. 103 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings and will crack the Top 100 again if he reaches the semi-finals in Estoril.
Thiem holds a 3-8 record for the year after Thursday’s win, which he will hope is the catalyst for improved results. The Austrian, who reached the Roland Garros final in 2018 and 2019, has historically excelled on clay. He has won 10 of his 17 tour-level crowns on the surface.
Shelton this week was making his tour-level debut on clay. The 20-year-old, currently No. 39 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, has enjoyed a standout start to the season, highlighted by his run to the quarter-finals at the Australian Open.
"He was coming up so far last year and this year with great results," Thiem said when asked about Shelton. "It was only his second match on a clay court. I had a lot of respect going into the match, the way he serves and his athletic abilities. The balls are coming really fast, so I was trying to use my clay-court experience today and it was very good."
Later on Thursday, Spain's Bernabe Zapata Miralles earned a comeback victory against second seed Hubert Hurkacz, 6-7(7), 6-4, 6-2. By beating the World No. 12, Zapata Miralles scored his biggest career win by measure of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and picked up his second Top 20 victory after beating Taylor Fritz last year at Roland Garros.
Hurkacz fell short of what would have been his 27th tour-level quarter-final and his third on clay; he reached the last eight in both Monte Carlo and Madrid last season.
Zapata Miralles will meet Miomir Kecmanovic in the quarters after the Serbian cruised past Austrian Jurij Rodionov 6-0, 6-1 to continue his perfect debut week in Estoril.
The sixth seed was ruthless throughout the 64-minute encounter at the clay-court event, pulling the World No. 120 around with his dynamic shotmaking to reach his third quarter-final of the season. Kecmanovic has not lost a set in his two Estoril victories, beginning with a straight-sets win against Luca Nardi in the first round.
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