Dominic Thiem Exclusive Interview: The Austrian reflects on his career in a candid interview where he reveals what really ended his career & what might be the beginning of a new one on the football pitch

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**John Silk** (1:32)
I see things that are not on the video are not true, but this is true, right?

**Dominic Thiem** (1:36)
I hate it. It got way bigger than expected, but the thing is I just joined a new club, because mainly of time reasons, and because it's closer to where I live, and some friends are going there. And I love football, I love K-15. I love also team sports, sometimes, so they're a change up to tennis, to the serious sport.
But yeah, it's got somehow surprisingly big in the social media.

**John Silk** (2:06)
Yeah, and coming back. Now, I spoke to you in Estoril 2024, which was probably two or three months before you announced your retirement.
Then obviously you retired later on that year. I just want to get this concrete. Was it a physical reason, a bit mental, a bit above? What was the actual concrete reason for deciding to retire?

**Dominic Thiem** (2:28)
The main reason was definitely physical.
The main reason was the wrist. But of course, as a following result of the wrist, my game was not where it should have been or where I was used to. And then of course some mental parts came to it, as I was not satisfied with my game.
It was not easy to fight for Transilent main draws, to fight to be in the main draw of the biggest tournaments. Whereas back then, two or three years before, I was going to every tournament and be able to fight for the title to beat anybody.
I was trying fighting for two, three years, but at the end it was a bit too much. And then I decided this big move to retire.

**John Silk** (3:20)
Was there pain in that couple of years then? Was it a constant pain? Was it coming and going? And was that affecting your game, I guess, in that last two, I'm thinking about that last two to three years?

**Dominic Thiem** (3:31)
There was some pain, but that was not the main reason. The main reason was that somehow, especially my forehand and also kick-serve, which was very important to my game, there was some pace and some acceleration missing. And that was just before, when I was on the top, on the peak of my game, like the biggest weapon I had, and those weapons lost some percent. And because of that, I was not the same player anymore. I was not as dangerous to my opponents as before.
And yeah, also, to be honest, I was fighting long enough. I had a feeling. I was also playing tennis long enough. So the time there, fighting, to be in the major of the biggest tournament also, it was costing a lot of power. And also the moment I saw, I'm not able to come back to the top ten or come back to fight for the big titles, then I decided that it's gonna be my last year back then.

**John Silk** (4:35)
Sure. Let's have some good memories now. Let's talk about maybe, for me, some of the best tennis of your career would have obviously been winning the US Open, but even that ATP finals of 2020