Dominic Thiem battles back again to reach first ATP final since 2020 on home soil in Kitzbuhel

For the third straight day Dominic Thiem battled back from a set down to win in front of his home crowd, and tomorrow, for the first time in 986 days, he’ll play for an ATP title.

The former No. 3 rallied to beat Laslo Djere in the semifinals of Kitzbuhel today, 6-7 (3), 7-5, 7-6 (8), and will now play his first tour-level final since November 22nd, 2020, when he finished runner-up to Daniil Medvedev at the season-ending ATP Finals in London.

Thiem had already dug his way back from dropping the first set in his last two rounds, defeating China’s Zhang Zhizhen in the second round, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, and then Arthur Rinderknech in the quarterfinals, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

And things looked even dicier against Djere on Friday, as after dropping the first set in a tie-break, Thiem found himself serving at 3-4, 15-40 in the second set—two break points that would have given Djere a chance to serve for the match.

But Thiem held, broke a few games later for 6-5 and served out the second set to send it into a third, and—after fighting off three match points in his 5-6 service game in the decider—eventually closed out the No. 38-ranked Serb in a tie-break, even saving two more match points down 6-5 and 7-6 in the breaker, too.

Awaiting Thiem in the semifinals will be the No. 5 seed, Laslo Djere, who upset No. 3 seed Pedro Cachin earlier in the day, 6-4, 6-2.

Thiem and Djere have played twice before, splitting those meetings, 1-1. Thiem won on clay in Rio de Janeiro in 2019, 6-3, 6-3, while Djere won on indoor hard courts in Tel Aviv last fall, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-4.

For Thiem, a win on Friday would be another milestone—he’s trying to reach his first tour-level final since 2020. He reached three that year, winning the US Open and finishing runner-up at the Australian Open (to Novak Djokovic) and the ATP Finals (to Daniil Medvedev).