Austria’s Dominic Thiem, 27, defeated Germany’s Alexander Zverev in a thrilling comeback in the five-set final 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(6) to lift his maiden 2020 US Open title on Monday.
This was the first US Open final to be decided by a fifth-set tie-break. With this win, Thiem claimed his maiden Grand Slam trophy after three previous defeats in the finals of tennis majors. After losing the first two sets, Thiem made an exceptional comeback and won the next three sets in a match that lasted for more than four hours.
Some notable stats:
-Thiem is the first man born in the 1990s to win a Grand Slam title. On the women’s side, players born in the 1990s or later have combined to win 15 majors, including one by a woman born in the 2000s (Bianca Andreescu, 2019 US Open).
-Thiem is now the second Austrian player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam singles title, after Thomas Muster won the 1995 French Open. Thiem is the only Austrian to make multiple major finals.
-Thiem is now the fifth man since the Open Era began in 1968 to come back from two sets down in a major final.
-In a US Open final, Thiem becomes the first man to come back from two sets down since 1949, when Pancho Gonzalez did the same against Ted Schroeder.
-This is the first time in men’s tennis that four consecutive Grand Slam finals have gone to five sets (2019 Wimbledon, 2019 US Open, 2020 Australian Open and 2020 US Open). Before this, there had only been two instances of three straight men’s major finals going to five sets (in 1927 and 1946).
-This was just the second men’s Grand Slam final to feature a deciding-set tiebreaker, after the 2019 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Last year was the first time Wimbledon began playing a tiebreaker once the set got to 12-
-Zverev is the first player to come back from two sets down and blow a two-set lead at the same US Open since Todd Martin in 1993. Martin rallied from 2-0 down to beat Jordi Burillo in the first round and then blew a 2-0 lead in the third round against Richard Krajicek.
