Dominic Thiem’s on-court gesture is something we need more of in tennis

TENNIS star Dominic Thiem wowed the crowd with a heartwarming act of sportsmanship as he dropped an important match.

Dominic Thiem wowed fans with a classy act of sportsmanship

A GOOD piece of sportsmanship never goes astray.

In professional tennis, rarely do we ever see tennis stars willingly throw away a chance at getting ahead, especially if it’s in an important match in an ATP World Tour event.

Tennis star Dominic Thiem wowed fans with a heartwarming gesture to opponent Kevin Anderson midway through their match at Washington’s Citi Open.

Thiem, struggling after dropping the first set 6-3 to Anderson, put his hand up to signal Anderson’s return had landed on the line after linesmen called it out.

Thiem then encouraged the South African to challenge the call.

Thiem immediately signals Anderson's ball is good after out call, Anderson hesitates to burn a challenge so Thiem, down a set, concedes pt. pic.twitter.com/s2dAG8dA5S

— TroubleFault (@troublefault) August 4, 2017

Good stuff here by Dominic Thiem. https://t.co/SDvbVBjb9Y

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 4, 2017

Dominic Thiem is an impressive guy. https://t.co/EFnGzI2pUb

— Tumaini Carayol (@tumcarayol) August 4, 2017

Anderson survived a tense third-set tie-breaker to upset the top-seeded Thiem and advance to the quarterfinals of the Citi Open.

The 6-foot-8 South African veteran fought off a match point before serving out the tie-breaker to win 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (7) on Thursday night and improve his career record to 6-0 against the seventh-ranked Thiem. The match lasted 2 hours, 46 minutes.

The Citi Open is a hard-court tune-up for the U.S. Open, which starts July 28. Anderson’s three career titles have all come on hard courts. Thiem has three titles this season, two on clay, and he reached the semi-finals at the French Open.

Kevin Anderson ended up coming away with a win.

Third-seeded Milos Raonic, the 2014 Citi Open champion, won a lengthy first-set tiebreak on the way to beating Marcos Baghdatis 7-6 (7), 6-3, and eighth-seeded Jack Sock beat fellow American Jared Donaldson 7-6 (6), 6-2. Raonic and Sock will face each other in the next round.

In the women’s draw, Canadian wildcard Bianca Andreescu knocked off second- seeded Kristina Mladenovic in straight sets to advance to the quarterfinals. Andreescu beat Mladenovic 6-2, 6-3 on Thursday. In other women’s matches, top- seeded Simona Halep came back from losing the first set to beat Mariana Duque- Marino 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, and Andrea Petkovic beat Eugenie Bouchard 6-2, 4-6, 6-0. Five of the top seven seeds in the women’s draw reached the quarterfinals.

— with AP