Musetti, another masterpiece: first career 500 final. On the horizon is Alcaraz

Another day with brush in hand to paint arabesques on the field for Lorenzo Musetti who overtakes the Argentine Cerundolo, fresh from the Bastad title and takes a seat in Hamburg in the first final of an ATP 500 in his career. Not without thrills: a serve from below on the first match point that allowed the Argentine to return, froze the blood of the Italian fans, and earned him a certain number of anathemas but he was still good at closing in two sets 6- 3 7-6 (3). He will soon know who his opponent will be tomorrow for the title but it is likely that a challenge will be on the horizon with Carlos Alcaraz who in the other semifinal challenges the Slovak Molcan, a pupil of Djokovic’s former coach, Marian Vajda.

A game that began with the accelerator to the tablet for the 20 year old Tuscan who flew to 5-1 before risking being sucked in. The Argentine comes back from a first break and goes to 5-3 with the opportunity of a second counterbreak to put things back on track. “All wrong!” we read on the lip of the 20-year-old pupil of Simone Tartarini, who still manages to maintain the advantage. A mental solidity that is growing like the service, that of the Tuscan player who closes the first set 6-3 and opens the second going ahead by a break. However, he cannot keep it up to the end: in the sixth game Cerundolo returns for 3-3, Lorenzo’s reaction, followed for the whole week by the blue coach Umberto Rianna, is immediate. At the second break point he manages to take the lead again in the next game by taking 4-3 and consolidating for 5-3.

At 5-4 when needed to conquer the final, one more moment of tension, the counterbreak ball for Cerundolo, who luckily for our plant a backhand on the net. Serves from below on the match point, Musetti, a wicked gesture punished by karma with an error that puts the Argentine back on track at 5-5 at the fourth break point. On the 6-5 Cerundolo takes everything, in full survivor syndrome he takes dangers that punctually repay him, while in Musetti’s head the worm of the previous villainy continues to work, 30-30. Lorenzo gets out of a bad problem and earns the tie break. The Italian goes 3-1 down, but Cerundolo gives a double foul that cancels the minibreak. It turns on 3-3, the worm stops working in Lorenzo’s head and moves to Cerundolo’s and this time Musetti has 3 match points. This time he serves as it should, and closes. It is final, the first of 500. Don’t mess around anymore.