Challenger, Musetti beats Passaro and wins in Forlì

A few days after his five-set defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round of Roland Garros, Lorenzo Musetti immediately got back into the game at Challenger level. In Forlì, the tennis player from Carrara took home a trophy and gained seven positions in the standings, entering the top 60: now he is 59th. In the final came the victory against another Italian, Francesco Passaro, number 369 in the ranking and now virtually 284: 2-6 6-3 6-2 the final score. Musetti therefore had to come back, also because in the first set he had to deal with a stiffening of the diaphragm, complete with a medical time-out between a partial and the other given the difficulty in breathing well. Lorenzo has managed to complete the work and is now ready for the season on the grass.

The path

–

The whole tournament was not easy for Musetti, who won four of the five games played in three sets, with the exception of the quarter-finals against Juan Manuel Cerundolo: the other players faced by the 2002 class were Skatov, Marterer and Gigante, an Italian player contemporary of Lorenzo. Simone Tartarini’s pupil had a bad time in the final: under one set and with the diaphragm problem, the game seemed to get out of hand. Many unused break points, 15 (out of 19 procured) throughout the match. In the long run, Musetti managed to assert the greatest talent and experience at high levels.

The grass

–

Lorenzo will go to Stuttgart tomorrow (Berrettini and Sonego will also be present), where he will face Nikoloz Basilashvili in the first round. In all likelihood, it will be time for Queen’s, then the idea is to play one between Eastbourne and Palma de Mallorca and then face Wimbledon, before returning to clay with the tournaments in Bastad, Hamburg and Umago. Attention to the discussion of the points for the ranking, with the exception of course of Wimbledon: last year Musetti only played the Championships on the grass, being struggling with the final exams. To prepare for the London Slam, Lorenzo trained on an improvised grass pitch in La Spezia in 2021. He will now have the opportunity to compete in ATP tournaments, with the possibility of gaining positions in the standings.