What a revenge guys. Lorenzo Musetti doesn’t say it, the tennis player who always plays too close to the tarpaulins at the back of the court and will never even achieve the results of Richard Gasquet, the tennis player whose movements are too wide for playing well away from his favorite red clay courts, the tennis player who has no fighting spirit, but fades away when things start going wrong and does not put up a fight to come back but gives up.
Simone Tartarini, the most criticized coach of the last two years, the one who is only a provincial tennis instructor, does not say it. The one who should understand his limits and understand the urgent need to be supported by a supercoach, otherwise the overrated Musetti will struggle to stay in the top 50 in the world.
I say it.
Well, considering that everyone can make mistakes, that no one is perfect, I really wish those hundreds of pundits, who even here on Ubitennis have made all these hard comments on Lorenzo Musetti and Simone Tartarini, had seen the whole match that Lorenzo played against Taylor Fritz, a player who has won Eastbourne three times and reached the quarterfinals for the second time at Wimbledon (the first time he also lost in 5 sets to Rafa Nadal) and whose worth on grass is much greater than his ATP ranking, No.12.
I am not saying, though still enthusiastic for having witnessed a 3-hour-and-27-minute display of extraordinary tennis unleashed on court 1 by Lorenzo, that Fritz played his best tennis with remarkable continuity. Indeed he missed many forehands (of 55 unforced errors I think at least 45 were forehands) and his percentage of first serves was low: even if the overall stat stands at 65%, there were times when he didn’t reach 45%. Yet, the variety of Lorenzo’s lavish repertoire made the difference. He would have made anyone lose his bearings and play badly… except perhaps Novak Djokovic whom Lorenzo will be facing in the semifinals today.
Just as there were many who exaggerated in belittling Lorenzo’s skills, now many people are popping up, eager to compare him to Roger Federer, because of his one-handed backhand, his delicacy in touching the ball, his mastery in alternating shots, from spinning baseline groundstrokes, to covered strokes hit close to the baseline, a sort of half volley, from razor-sliced balls which do not rise from the grass, to daring dropshots followed by cheeky lob volleys that land regularly on the line or nearby. A show within the show. Blessed are those who, like me, enjoyed it on court no. 1.
The truth lies in the middle. We are talking about a 22-year-old player, just like Federer was in 2003 when he won his first Wimbledon (but in 2001 the Swiss had already beaten a fellow called Sampras), who is not in the top 5 in the world or even in the top 10 or top 15.
It makes absolutely no sense to compare him – just because he has reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon – with Federer who is considered one of the greatest of all time.
Federer played 46 Grand Slam semifinals. On 20 occasions he went on to win the tournament, on 11 he lost in the final, 15 times he was halted in the semifinals. But at a certain moment he won 23 straight semifinals! An insane record.
It is evident that any comparison with someone like Lorenzo who has just reached his first semi-final is quite ridicoulous. Roger played until he was 37, so how can you compare him with a 22-year-old boy who has reached his first semi-final, and you have no idea what he can do in the future?
However, we can already say today that Lorenzo’s tennis, for its stylistic elegance is an anomalous, if not unique, tennis. Not only because he plays a one-handed backhand, and with that fairy hand of his he plays it flat, with topspin, sliced… Who else can deliver such goods? There is still Dimitrov, the former BabyFed, perhaps Shapovalov, and sooner or later someone else will come out, but that’s it.
Lorenzo is not only elegant, but also unpredictable, spectacular, a beauty to watch. Those who had paid 200 euros for a ticket on court 1 certainly did not regret it.
I can’t remember a fifth set played better by an Italian tennis player at Wimbledon than the one played yesterday by Musetti. Well, perhaps the one lost 6-4 by Nicola Pietrangeli with Rod Laver in the 1960 semifinal, but I saw it on a 21-inch TV and in black and white when I was 10 years old. If I were to look back on all my memories, there might be another fifth set worth mentioning, but it certainly wasn’t a quarterfinal.
And Musetti won in grand style. I was terribly worried at the beginning, because honestly when my friend Claudio Giua of Repubblica asked me for a prediction after Fritz had won the fourth set 6-3, I thought that Lorenzo would not be able to forget that he had led 0-40 on Fritz’s serve in the fifth game of that set (as well as missing a fourth break point). And so I gave him a thumbs down. Perhaps I did it out of a pinch of unconscious superstition.
Instead, Lorenzo played an excellent first game, closing it with two straight aces, the fourth and fifth of his match. And in the next game he snatched the break that paved the way for the most important victory of his career to date, “after the birth of my son the most beautiful and unforgettable moment of my life” he said. At least until he has also beaten Djokovic at Wimbledon… was the joke that was immediately sneaking amid insiders in the press conference room.
I have to be honest and report that Taylor Fritz could have held his following service game, had he not netted a comfortable forehand winner. That miss was such a shock that 4 points later he dropped his service. Then Lorenzo rushed off to a 9-point winning streak. In a flash he was leading 4-0. The match was practically over.
Fritz, who at the end of the fourth set had won two more points, 121 vs 119, crumbled down. And Musetti instead… was in Heaven. How wonderful! A third Italian in the semifinals at Wimbledon in 4 years after Berrettini in 2021, Sinner one year ago and Lorenzo now in 2024.
Why not equal Berrettini’s final… but Lorenzo has to do even better than Berrettini! That is, he has to beat Djokovic, the 7 times Wimbledon champion. But Djokovic has sailed through a very lucky draw in this tournament and has never been seriously “tested”. The first rounds, Kopriva, Fearnley were ridiculous. In the third Popyrin was a slightly more serious opponent… And in fact he also won a set and dragged Novak to a tiebreak in the fourth. Then it was a really disappointing Holger Rune who showed up in the round of sixteen. Finally a heartbroken injured de Minaur could not even step out on court.
Against Djokovic Musetti (1-5 head-to-head) has shown, more in the two five-set matches he lost at Roland Garros than when he won in Monte Carlo, that he has the right type of game to unsettle him.
DjokerNole will not concede as many unforced forehand errors as Fritz, but he is not the same Djokovic who has lifted 7 Wimbledon trophies. Besides, Lorenzo is someone who has always played well when he has nothing to lose. He will play on the legendary Centre Court for the first time, but considering how he performed at his debut on Court One, he could play another great match without being overwhelmed by emotion.
The strategy set up by Musetti and his coach on Wednesday was perfect. He was constantly aggressive, always trying to dictate. I think that even against Djokovic he will always try to take over the rallies, varying his schemes as much as possible, also playing dropshots that the Serbian – inevitably still concerned about the state of his knee – may not be so willing to run down. In short, I expect another great match of our “Muso”, won or lost.
I hope he will not be intimidated at the beginning by Djokovic, by the centre court, by the emotion of a first Slam semifinal. Because if he were to lose the first set, coming back against Djokovic would not be like coming back in his match with Fritz.
I also think that, with a large part of the public supporting him, Lorenzo just has to throw in some great points from the beginning to get boosted up. Djokovic knows this and, with his great experience, will be very careful not to give away any free points. At the beginning as at the end.
Because Lorenzo has shown, with the semifinal in Stuttgart, the final at Queen’s and even more with yesterday’s match with Fritz, that he feels wonderfully at ease on grass, where his slice backhand is a formidable weapon, both when defending and attacking, where his shots down the line could be as effective as Djokovic’s and provided that his forehands and dropshots work as smoothly as against Fritz. The American, who missed many forehands, instead played very well off his backhand for most of the match. Djokovic will not be able to play much better than that. Lorenzo was capable of firing back on Wednesday, why not today as well?
A tough enterprise awaits our Musetti, yet not impossible.
Translated by Kingsley Elliot Kaye
