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ROLEX PARIS MASTERS

October 28, 2018

Dominic Thiem

Paris, France

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. It's obviously last big tournament of the season before the big one so most players start to, like, draw the line, say, This was a good season, not a good season. I wanted more on this one, less on this one. How would you consider overall your season?
DOMINIC THIEM: Yeah, well, I think it was a good season in general, but there were too many up and downs, and then I missed three Masters 1000 tournaments and I think in another two I lost first round. So the Masters 1000 was horrible, basically. So maybe I can do it a little bit better here in Paris.

And Grand Slams are very good. Also I won three titles. So it was a good season. But of course I would be more than happy to make it to London once again.

Q. What do you attribute the up and downs to? Obviously in the Grand Slams you challenged very strongly. You reached the final in the French Open. You were very close to beating Nadal. What do put the up and downs elsewhere to?
DOMINIC THIEM: Yeah, I mean, the Grand Slams I didn't have the up and downs but it's also easier there to avoid them because of the best of five. So for me it's more difficult to perform well in the Masters 1000 because many times I need a while until I'm in the tournament, even in Madrid when I made the finals, I was almost out in the first two rounds. And this for sure I have to improve.

And also I was little bit unlucky. I injured myself in Indian Wells, because of that I missed Miami, and Toronto and Cincinnati I was both sick. So I basically almost missed four Masters 1000 and another two or three I performed bad and so there was only Madrid left and hopefully another good one here.

Q. We heard about maybe a few days ago that some top players maybe have sent a letter to the ITF complaining about the Davis Cup format change next year. Have you signed this letter and could you just have a few comments about it, please.
DOMINIC THIEM: I didn't sign any letter because, yeah, I said already many times that I liked the new format, that I liked the new Davis Cup. So I'm sure that I won't sign anything against it because I'm sure the organization team will make an incredible event. And I'm already really pumped for the Davis Cup in February to get the chance to qualify for that event. So I don't really know what happened and for sure it's that I'm not against the event.

Q. But do you think it's a good idea to put the Davis Cup in November next year after the Masters Cup?
DOMINIC THIEM: The year is just too short so you have to put it somewhere and November, it's not the best position, but on the other hand, until now the Davis Cup finals was also on this date after the ATPs finals. So for, I don't know, eight to ten players this season was that long as it is from next year on for, I don't know, for hundred player or whatever, how many compete in the new event. So I think it makes the season even longer but I think if it's a really nice event, it's going to establish itself and we will see it.

Q. Do you get the feeling 2019 is the year that you will be able to win a Grand Slam? Do you feel that you're that close or you prefer not to put that sort of pressure on yourself?
DOMINIC THIEM: I think if you're not Federer, Nadal, Djokovic or Murray, nobody can say, I'm going to win a Grand Slam the next season. Because besides them almost nobody did it.

So of course I try my best again. And I was result-wise pretty close in French Open, and I think it's the Grand Slam where I'm going to have again the biggest chances. So that's where my season is mostly built on, on the French Open to perform really good there. And of course my dream is to win a first Grand Slam title next year, but I'm not going to say to myself it has to happen next year because I think it wouldn't be good, it wouldn't be fair to the achievements from these big players.

Q. You just mentioned that there's only three, four players that can go into the season saying, I want to win a Grand Slam. And the players who met this media day before you today, there was a talk about the fact that playing in the generation and the era of those three, four big players had been maybe unlucky for players of their same age. You're sort of in between, between Roger and Novak. You're younger than them but a bit more mature than the next generation. How do you feel and assess this? How does it feel to play between them?
DOMINIC THIEM: I think we, like, generation of me is very nice for us because we still compete with these big players at their best. So we can learn from them. We can improve with them. We can overtake them at one point.

And on the other hand, we're going to still play when they stop. So I think we're quite a lucky generation and we have to use it well.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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