We, the faithful of the racket of this peninsula, not the other yesterday, we are easily recognizable, in the street, on the metro, in bars and even in plants. How to identify ourselves? We are constantly looking for someone who gives us a pinch, a bracpellotto, because for at least four years, in an unimaginable crescendo, we are witnessing events that have all the characteristics of a reverie.
We do not only have the number 1 in the world, which collects the major on the Major, Wimbledon is exhausted with the authority of the greatest in history and crushes all Bubik the steps by firing. The primacy of the ranking can also lose, because the AMA has decided to stop it for three months, but Jannik Sinner does another sport today.
The god of tennis with regard to gifts against us, however, wanted to exaggerate. In fact, the best tennis player, because there is no one who knows how to draw tennis such as Lorenzo Musetti, was so benevolent to deliver us, after the strongest player. For at least a few years, we wondered who can go into the rivalry between Jannik and Alcaraz. Zverev, Medvedev, Rune, Draper, maybe Fonseca will arrive … For the moment everyone has postponed. For four months (but have not forgotten Wimbledon and 2024 Olympic Games), the most credible candidate is the Carrara champion. We listened to 24 hours on how the regularity of Munar could put it in difficulty. Then the game started and after five minutes, the difference between Musetti and the honest Spanish, or the same that separates the McLaren from Piastri de la Ferrari de Hamilton: Abyssal, emerged. Lorenzo is the closest human being to Roger Federer. And since “large responsibilities derive from great powers”, the divine “muzzle” cannot be satisfied, even tomorrow, when in the quarter -finals of New York, in the immense Stade Arthur Ashe, he will challenge the number 1 in the world.
The previous ones
We had “touched” the great challenge in Rome and Roland Garros this season, but on occasion, Alcaraz had stopped Musetti on the eve of the final and therefore of the Blue Derby. Jannik and Lorenzo clashed twice at the ATP level (Antwerp 2021, in inner concrete and on Montecarlo red in 2023) and have always won the South Tyrolean in two sets.
However, fans remember another precedent, unofficial, but which represented the dawn of the new era of Italian tennis. Rome, May 8, 2019, semi-final of the prequalification tournament: a joker during the main attraction of the imminent internationals of Italy at stake. Sinner recently entered the top 300, Musetti is back from the victory of the Australian Open junior and the number 1 armchair in the world. Script for the dispute The mythological stadium Nicola Pietrangeli.
True Game and, although the two always look for a precise game identity, the shock between different styles is obvious. Lorenzo arrives two points from the victory in the equality break in the second set, but Sinner, who escaped the danger, imposes himself in the final fraction by affirming a wealth of greater experience among the big ones, shaped with the victory in the Bergamo challenger and in the ITF of Trento and Santa Margherita Di Pula.
A little over six years have passed and the world of tennis was turned upside down. Federer and Nadal are retired, Djokovic resists the top ten, but abdicated: the throne and the big events are no longer a land for the conquest for the Serb.
In the outlet of the blocks to recover the heritage of the three large, the fastest to go out was Carlitos Alcaraz, but our sinner, with the extinct headlights, put the arrow and made the void. This year, after the again in Melbourne and the forced agreement of concordance, he made himself final in Rome and Paris, a short victory, victory in Wimbledon and final in Cincinnati. A monster. The victory suffered against the talent of intermittent Shapovalov, in the third round of these United States, however, opened a very small glow and is in these few centimeters that Musetti will try to enter.
The sinner favored, but …
The number of the last two seasons indicates that overcoming the sinner on concrete is one of the most difficult challenges of this sport. Over the past 20 months, they have only succeeded Alcaraz (three times) and Rublev. The others collected crumbs or a little more. Like Roger on the grass, Rafa in red and case on the hard, now Jannik is the point of reference for everyone, the metro with which to measure the level and the ambitions. The more difficult the challenge, the more it manages to increase the level of his game. So why should Lorenzo Musetti believe in the company? Let’s try to answer. First of all. No one in the circuit plays like him. Not even Alcaraz, who also has infinite technical training. Flavio Cobolli said: “Sometimes Lorenzo does not even realize his qualities”.
When he has his feet near the line, he can order anyone and by far, he is one of the best to defend himself. Variations are then the specialty of the house: attenuated, reverse lungolinea to close the point or in the edge to move the opponent and remove the rhythm, go down to the net and the one that has more, the more it puts it. Second. Its growth from a mental point of view. Step by step, the student of Super coach Simone Tartarini has never stopped growing and adding solutions and continuity to his tennis. The shot forward in 2025 was remarkable everywhere, but sensational from the point of view of the mental seal and the attitude on the rectangle of the game. So much to face one as a peanner with the peer? Difficult, but the clear feeling is that for the major events and the most important trophies of the coming years, Jannik and Carlitos will also have to face Musetti. And we just have to enjoy the spectacle with the conscience of that of the three best tennis players in the world, two are Italian.
