Finally through the door to Interview Room 1 is Thiem, running his hands through his still-wet wavy brown hair. He is compact and strong, walking with the confident bearing one might expect from an elite athlete. He’s quite handsome, with a square jaw and bright blue eyes that seem to never blink. He betrays no emotion, looking as if he’s just come from depositing a check at the bank instead of a straight-set win over his tricky third-round opponent, Adrian Mannarino. He takes his place behind the microphone, the camera crew signal that they are recording, and the moderator asks for questions.

But there aren’t any. Thiem, the victor, the eighth-best male tennis player in the world, presides over a room nearly empty, save the four German-language reporters waiting in the wings to speak to him more privately. The room is silent for a moment, and then the contingency plan kicks in, which is to have the camerawoman duck her head from behind the lens and ask all the questions herself, which she does, and not for the first time. I’d seen low attendance in plenty of press conferences before, but this was embarrassing, made more so by the fact that it had happened repeatedly for top-ranked Thiem at the U.S. Open.

The camerawoman offers up vague softballs, like how did Thiem feel about his performance, and he answers in a manner I’ve come to expect: He acknowledges that there are at least two ways of looking at anything, and that those ways are both fine—the most non-committal kind of non-answer. His tone of voice never wavers above a quiet drone, his stony gaze remains fixed ahead, his explanations are boring and brief. My performance was good, he’ll say, but there’s room to improve. My opponent was tough, but I played him well. I didn’t execute from the start, but luckily it all worked out just fine. End of press conference.

When I return to the media center, I describe the strange scene to a colleague who shrugs dismissively and says, “The press has given up! We don’t go to his pressers anymore because there’s no way to get anything out of him, but you get points for trying.”

And I have been trying. I’ve spent the first week of the U.S. Open interviewing Thiem, observing the blips that count as his press conferences, stalking his practices, and attending all his matches, attempting to get a glimpse of who he is as a person and having no luck. But the more distant he is, the more curious I become. I am already enthralled by him as a player, my enthusiasm cemented at the French Open, where I had the privilege to watch him up close from courtside press seating. Even the most casual TV viewer can see Thiem’s power, his precise serve, his returning prowess. But watching him in person, especially on clay, his preferred surface, is the only way to fully appreciate his dynamic balance and deceptive speed. I had several breathless moments seeing him glide ten feet on the fine, loose top layer of sand to execute flawless drop shots, followed by all-out sprints back to the baseline to return a lob that would have, for any other player, sailed over their head and out of reach. There on the Parisian red clay, his grit and endurance were matched by style and graceful motion, making him, to me, the most exciting player of the tournament.

When I ask Thiem about his speed and movement, he says, “The speed you have, you can’t practice it. You have to be fast from your birth on. There are other things you can practice, like flexibility or the little steps needed to stand good to the ball, but to be fast is a gift you get.” When I ask him if there are other aspects of the game that are similarly innate, he gives me a blank look. “Maybe reaction time or something? I’m not sure.” He pauses, and I mistake the pause to indicate that he’s searching further for an answer, but he isn’t. It is not a pause at all, but an abrupt end to his answer. He watches me calmly, waiting for my next question, but I stumble over my words. He possesses a focused stillness that unnerves me. If you were careless, you could mistake it for rudeness or reluctance, but you’d be mistaken. Thiem is fully engaged with me, maintaining unblinking eye contact, but he doesn’t indulge in the verbal tics or body language most use to express active listening—he doesn’t nod his head in acknowledgment or smile or frown as he’s thinking of his answer—not that I feel he owes me or anyone else such a comfort. He completes the obligation of the interview with perfect neutrality. I don’t have the sense that he in any way resents the time spent talking to me, but it’s just that his mind is slightly ahead of the moment, cataloguing the real work he needs to do once this task ends. It’s admirable. That night I ride the subway home in much the same mode.