Sin. It seemed done: a set lead and 2-0 in the second. But when Lorenzo Musetti already felt he had one foot in the quarter-finals of the 1000 in Monte Carlo, “El Peque”, aka Diego Schwartzman, got his foot in it. A moment of Musetti’s distraction was enough, and the Argentine took the opportunity to get the game going (2-6 6-4 6-3) as often happens in tennis. From the ball of the possible 3-0 for the Italian it passed to 2-1 for Schwartzman. Musetti, however, came back 3-1 but by now Diego was cleared up, he started to make less mistakes, he overturned the result by winning the Italian taking on 4-3.
And the «Muzzle», who had been teaching tennis for an hour and a half, slowly but surely lost his enamel. In the third Schwartzman, the ubiquitous and practically infallible one of 2021 returned to earth, he placed the first break (2-1) and then extended with a second break. Musetti at that point disunited, he also took a warning for a gesture of nervousness, but he did not give up. At 5-2 for the Argentine he also recovered one of the breaks, but in the next game he missed a couple of too easy balls, then delivering the match and quarter-finals to Peque with a double fault. A missed opportunity, but still a great tournament for Lorenzo. “Today for a set and a half I played my best tennis, even compared to the match with Auger-Aliassime,” he says.
«I’m sorry, because in the second set I was two times ahead of a break, then I physically dropped and he put in another gear. Tennis is like that, you can’t afford some drops, so I’ll have to work harder on my body too, learn to better manage my energies on and off the court. After all, it is something that you learn with experience. But from this tournament I take away three beautiful games, played from start to finish, and this gives me great confidence. Where will I play now? I don’t know, in Barcelona I forgot to subscribe to which, now I hope to enter anyway. God saw that I play tennis well, maybe he will help me… ». Now, apart from heavenly aids, comes the most obvious and at the same time most difficult task: to give continuity, to repeat weeks like this one and to continue working with coach Tarantini. Starting from the number 68 Atp.