Lorenzo Musetti battled past Alexander Zverev 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 in a hard-fought match to achieve his second win against a top 2 opponent to reach his third Masters 1000 semifinal at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia at the Foro Italico in Rome in his first tournament as a top 10 player.
Musetti won 15 of the 20 points in which he used the drop shot. He converted all three break points he faced and saved all four of six break points he faced.
Musetti becomes the third Italian player to reach the semifinals at the Rome Masters 1000 tournament since 2000, and the ninth player in history to advance to at least the semifinals at all three clay-court at all three Masters 1000 tournaments in the same season. He finished runner-up to Carlos Alcaraz In the Monte-Carlo final and lost to Jack Draper in the semifinal in Madrid.
Zverev converted his third break point in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. Musetti broke back in the eighth game to draw level to 4-4. Zverev earned a second break in the 11thgame to take a 6-5 lead. The German player went up a 40-0 lead on his next service game, but Musetti saved four set points before breaking back in the 12th game to force a tie-break.
The Italian player saved the first set point with a backhand pass. He hit an inside-out winner to save the second set point.
Musetti saved the third set point with a drop-shot forehand combo. A backhand drop-shot forced an error from Zverev on the German’s fourth set point.
Musetti went up a 5-0 lead in the tie-break with two mini-breaks and converted his first set point to win the tie-break 7-1.
Musetti saved a break point in the second game of the second set. Both players held on serve until the ninth game when Musetti earned a break point with a backhand passing shot. He earned his only break to take a 5-4 lead and served out with a hold at 30 to set up a semifinal clash against Carlos Alcaraz, who won their most recent four head-to-head matches, including the Monte-Carlo final.
Musetti, who is No. 8 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, set for a new career high and a Top 8 seed at Roland Garros.
“Full crowd, full stadium, and that’s a big advantage. All this week there has been incredible support from the fans. I felt the adrenaline and energy from the first point, even if it was not an easy start, but I managed to come back and find a way, and that’s the key of this match”, said Musetti.
