Lorenzo Musetti continued his fine season by thrilling the home crowd with a hard-fought victory over Alexander Zverev in the Italian Open quarter-finals. (More Tennis News)
The Italian battled past second seed Zverev, who succumbed to a 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 defeat to add further pain to a disappointing year so far.
Carlos Alcaraz awaits Musetti in the last four in Rome after the world number nine claimed yet another impressive top-10 scalp, his fourth of the year, on the clay courts of his home country.
Two-time Rome champion Zverev surged into an early 3-1 lead after breaking in Musetti's second service game, claiming his third chance at a break point.
Musetti did not appear too concerned by that initial setback, however, snatching his first break point to level at 4-4 before failing to hold his serve and falling 6-5 down.
Zverev then squandered four set points with the ball in hand from 40-0 up, allowing Musetti to send the opening set to a tie-break, which the Italian dominated.
A marathon of an opening set lasting over an hour came to a rapturous conclusion, and both players refused to budge by holding their serve all the way through to 4-4 in the next.
Musetti struck once again at the decisive moment, stunning Zverev with his only break-point chance of the second set, before edging over the line by taking his second match point in the next game.
Data Debrief: Magic Musetti fires on home soil
Musetti is the fifth player to reach each of his first three ATP Masters 1000 semi-finals on clay, after Guillermo Coria, Gaston Gaudio, Dominic Thiem and Casper Ruud, since 2000.
Aged 23 years and 65 days, he is also the second-youngest Italian in the Open Era to reach the men's singles semi-finals at this tournament, only older than Paolo Bertolucci (21y 304d in 1973).
Musetti has now won 22바카라 웹사이트of his past 26바카라 웹사이트matches on clay after already becoming a바카라 웹사이트finalist in Monte-Carlo and a semi-finalist in Madrid this year.
This year also marks바카라 웹사이트Musetti's most top-10 wins of his career, beating the three achieved in both 2022 and 2024, having claimed his fourth scalp in seven such matches.
