Tennis, Next Gen Atp Finals: Draper eliminates Musetti

A bad night with a valued opponent, world number 41, Jack Draper. Lorenzo Musetti greets the Next Gen Atp Finals already in the groups, after a day in which we had already lost Francesco Passaro and Matteo Arnaldi: no Italian will play tomorrow’s semifinals. Nakashima will challenge Draper, the Swiss Stricker – player in the best form of the tournament – will face Lehecka. The expectations were quite different.

how many mistakes

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Musetti was the favorite to the final victory after the resignation of Holger Rune, in Turin as a reserve after the extraordinary results of the last period. But Lorenzo closes the tournament with two knockouts out of three: victory on his debut against Chun-Hsin Tseng, defeats against left-handed Stricker (Wednesday evening) and in fact Draper, solid for the entire duration of the match and good at taking advantage of the tennis player’s difficulties. Carrara. He appeared rigid and with many, too many free mistakes: 20, an enormous amount in a match that lasted less than an hour.

the match

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The final score is clear: 4-1 4-0 4-3. Heavy score for Musetti, who now has a few days of rest ahead of him before the trip to Malaga for the Davis Cup. In the first two sets, every turn is a pain: Musetti saves himself from 15-40 in the first and loses the next three. The audience tries to charge Lorenzo, but things do not go: in the second game of the second set the Carrarino falls in an attempt to recover a short ball, there is a few seconds of apprehension. Draper does not lose focus and continues to hammer with the serve, but also to keep the exchanges well and find winners. Flashes of light in the third set, which ends in a tie-break with Musetti who still has to save two break points in the third game. In the tie-break Musetti often relies on the short ball, but with mixed fortunes. Impeccable instead Draper, who closes 7-3 with the ace.

“Today for me very little energy”

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At the end of the match, at the press conference, Musetti reassured after the fall in the second set. “But this morning I was undecided whether to play or not. The end-of-season fatigue was seen, even yesterday. I was unable to recover from the challenging match with Stricker. For the support of the public I tried to do something, even if it was little. Draper was good at imposing the game on him. Today there was very little energy, but his arm is not to be considered an injury. Now I will finally have a moment of rest after Davis, it was my fifth week in a row ”.