(Reuters) – Austrian Dominic Thiem said he has recovered from a foot injury he suffered during a tournament in Vienna and will travel to London this week to take part in the season-ending ATP Finals.
U.S. Open champion Thiem struggled with blisters during the Vienna Open last month and his title defence at his home tournament ended when he lost in the quarter-finals.
The world number three subsequently pulled out of the Paris Masters to give himself time to recover for the ATP Finals, which is played between the top eight men’s single players and doubles teams and will be held in London from Nov. 15-22.
“Nothing is quiet in fall – the last weeks have been busy,” the 27-year-old said in a post on his website.
“After losing in the quarter-final at my home tournament in Vienna I recovered from my foot injury. It took me two, three days to recover, then I started my preparation for the final in London at the O2-Arena.”
Thiem went down narrowly to Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final of last year’s tournament after defeating Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals and Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the group stages.
“On Wednesday I am leaving for London with a ‘mini-team’. The final goal of 2020, the memories of last year are nice!” he said.
Last week, Thiem’s home country reported record number of infections from the novel coronavirus. The capital Vienna witnessed a lone gunman kill four people in a rampage on Monday.
Thiem called the attack “very, very sad” and said his coach was close to the scene.
“It was a week with thousands of thoughts in my mind. My coach Nicolas Massu literally experienced the atrocious terror attack in Vienna, was close having dinner at a restaurant and was locked up until 2:30 at night,” Thiem said.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
