LONDON: Whilst most players have been training on the grass leading up to Wimbledon, Lorenzo Musetti had to spend two weeks without lifting a racket.
The world No.7 has endured a frustrating past few weeks on the Tour which started at the French Open where he reached the semifinals before retiring due to a leg injury. He was diagnosed with a first-degree lesion in his left leg adductor muscle. The original diagnosis was a month-long break but he managed to cut that in half with the help of therapy and exercises.
As a consequence, the Italian has been unable to play any events on the surface leading up to this year’s grass-court major. To put this into perspective, he played nine Tour-level matches on the surface before Wimbledon last year.
“The important thing is to stay healthy and to be healthy enough to play, so here we are,” Musetti told reporters on Sunday.
“I stayed out without touching any racquet for two full weeks, but the important thing was doing therapies and rehabilitation every day. I didn’t take a vacation for two weeks.
“I worked hard as I could to be ready and to be fast enough to recover to be ready to be playing here.”
Musetti’s original plan was to arrive on Monday and get a week’s worth of training under his belt. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way with illness affecting him for two of those days. It wasn’t disclosed as to what type of illness he had.
To add to extra pressure, Musetti is defending 800 points at The All England club after reaching the semi-finals in 2024.
“I wanted to be more prepared for Wimbledon this year. Of course, I have semi-final points to defend. It’s an important stage of the season, which I wanted to do great and to continue the great form that I showed in the last months,” he continued.
“The positive thing is I spend some time with my family. So if I have to see the positive and the negative things, I will go more with the positive ones.
“Hopefully this kind of time that I spend at home has given me an extra motivation to do well here in Wimbledon.”
Musetti will play Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili in the first round on Tuesday.
