On a rain-interrupted Saturday afternoon, world No 16 Lorenzo Musetti defeated world No 10 Alex de Minaur in Monte-Carlo.
It was a close battle, involving a second set comeback for Musetti.
Serendipitously, the claw-back mirrored his quarter-final match against Stefanos Tsitsipas, when he won after losing the first set, 6-1.
Saturday’s match was sealed in three sets, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/4).
Outstanding run
The two had met before – in 2022 and 2024 – with a head to head record tied at 1-1, but this would be their first duel on clay.
Australian De Minaur had had an outstanding run thus far, undeniably playing the best clay court tennis of his career.
His previous match, the quarter-final, was a demolition of Grigor Dimitrov, resulting in a 6-0, 6-0 “double bagel”.
A place in the final would have made him the second Australian ATP Masters 1000 finalist on clay following Patrick Rafter in Rome 1999.
But it was not to be.
With the change in weather, came the change in form, which gave Musetti fresh vigour to fight back and win.
In winning, Italian Musetti becomes the third Italian Monte-Carlo finalist in the open era after Corrado Barazzutti in 1977 and Fabio Fognini in 2019.
The 23-year-old joins Fabio Fognini and Matteo Berrettini as the third Italian ATP Masters 1000 finalist on clay.
The win will also mean a jump in rankings into the top 10.
‘Dream’
At his post-match press conference, Musetti said that it was a dream to be in the final, play for a place in the top 10, and for the title.
It had been a testing week for the Italian.
With the exception of his match against Berrettini, his matches had all been three setters; “the week has been a rollercoaster of emotion, you know, surprising stuff, I will say, because I could have lost the first day that I played against Bu or Lehecka, or with Stefanos… the only match that was really clear with the score was the one with Matteo”.
Looking ahead to facing world No 3 Carlos Alcaraz in the final, Musetti was asked if he would be drawing lessons from the last final they played, three years ago in Hamburg.
“I mean, would say long time ago, three years ago. So of course, both of us, we changed a lot. What I can say is that was a really epic match, I would say, a rollercoaster. There I was leading, and then I lost the second set with many match points, championship points. Then I came back”.
He acknowledged the importance of the focusing on the mental aspect of the game: “hopefully I’ll do the same.”
Amisha Savani is reporting exclusively for The South African from the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, in the Principality of Monaco
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