The 20-year-old Italian Lorenzo Musetti, who overcame hampered preparations and through a rollercoaster ride at the ATP 500 event in Hamburg, will find it difficult to forget the feelings of winning his first Tour-level prize.
Lorenzo Musetti beats the odds to win his first championship in Hamburg
Prior to the Hamburg European Open, Musetti had dropped his previous six matches on the tour and didn’t have his bag of rackets with him.
He organised his playing equipment in time for the competition, but he suddenly got food poisoning.
Musetti opened up on it and said that when he came to venue. One of his bag(s) was lost because of all the strikes. He was little concerned about how I would play because (he was) the one with the racket. The evening before the games began, he vomited nonstop. he felt a little bit sick because he had food poisoning. He is very happy that his luck changed in this event because he didn’t anticipate going as far as he did.
Against Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic in the first round, he was about to suffer his seventh straight defeat but displayed incredible resiliency to save two match points and go on to win for the first time since May.
On Sunday, Musetti competed in his first championship final against Spanish opponent Carlos Alcaraz, 19, who had previously won all five of his appearances in finals at the Tour level.
In a nail-biting match, the Italian defeated Alcaraz, who on Monday became the youngest player to enter the top five since Rafa Nadal in 2005, 6-4 6-7(6) 6-4, despite blowing five title points in the second set.
“To me, it’s a fantasy. Naturally, I’ve always wanted to win a championship, but I never had the opportunity to do so,” said Musetti, who reached a career-high rating of 31. “Since it’s the first time, I can’t put into words how it seems.