Italian players Lorenzo Sonego and Lorenzo Musetti will be in the spotlight at this week’s Sardegna Open in Cagliari, an ATP 250 tournament, which kicks off the European clay season.
Sonego is a strong contender on the clay surface. He reached the quarter finals at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters and won his maiden ATP title in Antalya in 2019. Last year the Turin-native player achieved his career-high number 32 after beating Novak Djokovic in the Vienna semifinal en route to his first ATP 500 final before finishing runner-up to Andrey Rublev. Sonego beat Taylor Fritz 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 7-6 (19-17) to reach the fourth round at Roland Garros, winning the longest men’s singles tie-break in tournament history.
Fritz is also in the line-up in Cagliari. The US player, who reached the third round at the US Open last year, will open his campaign against either Jiri Veseli or Andrej Martin. Another US player in the Cagliari field is Fritz’s close friend Tommy Paul, who will play against Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann. Paul pushed Dominic Thiem to the fourth set at 2019 Roland Garros.
Musetti has moved up to world number 94 becoming the youngest player in the top 100 after reaching his first ATP 500 semifinal in Acapulco and the third round at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Miami. The 19-year-old Next Gen Italian player beat Diego Schwartzman, Frances Tiafoe and Grigor Dimitrov before losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinal. Musetti is one of the ten Italian players in the top 100 of the ATP Ranking.
The player trained by his longtime coach Simone Tartarini will open his campaign against Austria’s Dennis Novak in the first round. The winner of the match between Musetti and Novak will face top seed Daniel Evans. The British player won his first ATP Tour title at the Murray River Open in Melbourne and reached the doubles final in Miami alongside his teammate Neal Skupski.
Nikoloz Basilashvili is another strong contender on clay. The Georgian player won two ATP 500 titles on clay in Hamburg. This year he beat Roger Federer en route to winning the ATP 250 title in Doha.
French veteran Gilles Simon, the only former top 10 player in the field, will face Italy’s Stefano Travaglia in the opening round.
The other top names to watch are 2018 Roland Garros semifinalist Marco Cecchinato, who reached the Sardinia Open final last October, fifth seed Jan-Lennard Struff from Germany. Marcelo Melo and Jean Julien Rojer lead the line-up in the doubles tournament. Matteo Berrettini will make his come-back in the doubles tournament alongside his brother Jacopo Berrettini.
