Next Gen Atp Finals in Milan: Passaro beaten, now Musetti

The first day of the Next Gen Atp Finals at the Allianz Cloud in Milan, the most “Italian” ever with three Azzurri in the race, opened with the defeat of Francesco Passaro in four sets against the Czech Lehecka 4-1 4-3 (7) 4-1 in one hour and 40 minutes. Now it’s up to Lorenzo Musetti against the Chinese Chun Hsin Zheng. Lorenzo comes from a very positive period with the victory of the Naples tournament and the quarter-finals in Paris Bercy, defeated by Novak Djokovic. When Musetti debuted in Milan in November a year ago, Chun-Hsin Tseng was out of the top 200 of the ranking. Now the Chinese from Taipei born on August 8 as Federer but in 2001, he is number 90 in the ranking with a best ranking of 83 reached in August.

Passaro surrenders

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Passaro, 21 years old from Perugia, is among the beautiful blue surprises of 2022. He won his first ATP match in Florence last October on the fast indoor, but the bulk of the work he did before: out of the top 600 at the beginning of the season, now he is 119 of the world thanks to exploits in Challengers. A victory in Trieste against Zhang, and three defeats in the final against Rune, Musetti and Stebe.