After Roland Garros, also Wimbledonfor the second Slam in a row – and in the entire history of Italian tennis – Italy has a semi-finalist and a semi-finalist in the singles draw: Tuesday Jasmine Paolinitoday it was the turn of Lorenzo Musetti rewrite history, conquering his first career Slam semifinal against the American Taylor Fritz.
At the end of a match lasting almost three and a half hours, with continuous reversals of scores, an infinite alternation of emotions, the Carrara native, number 25 in the world (but destined to rise significantly in the ranking), becomes the fourth Italian ever among the last four at the Championships, after Nicola Pietrangeli (1960), Matteo Berrettini (2021, the first Italian ever in the final) and Jannik Sinner (2023).
Confirming his happy moment on grass this season, where he has won 12 of the last 14 matches played, reaching the semi-final in Stuttgart, the final at Queen’s and now the semi-final on the lawns of SW19. Won at the expense of Fritz, fresh from his third consecutive victory on the Eastbourne grass, a specialist of this surface that makes the feat achieved by the Italian even more prestigious. “I still haven’t realized what I’ve done – Musetti’s hot words -. I probably don’t even have the words to describe what I feel. On the eve of the match, my team and I told each other to try to play well even on big stages like this (Musetti played on Court No. 1 of the All England Club). For me, this match was an honor, but also a responsibility. However, I think we played a great match, because Taylor was also in good shape”.
The slow start of the Italian favours Taylor, who wins the first set. But he doesn’t keep waiting the reaction Musetti, who immediately finds the break in the second game: he is caught up, but still wins the tie-break. Musetti clearly dominates in the third set, before Fritz’s comeback in the fourth set. In the fifth and decisive set, the difference is made by Musetti’s greater freshness, who takes the stage, breaks the American’s service twice and closes on the first match point (36 76(5) 62 36 61).
“I probably saved my best tennis for the end, while at the beginning of the match I had some difficulties with my serve. The turning point came in the second set, which gave me great confidence. I hope I can play just as well on Friday.”
When on the other side of the net there will be Novak Djokovicseven-time winner of Wimbledon, who today benefited from the withdrawal of Alex De Minaur: the Australian has not recovered from the injury suffered during the match point of the round of 16 against Arthur Fils. The precedents smile widely on the Serbian, who leads 5-1: the two have never met on grass, and Musetti’s only success dates back to Monte Carlo 2023. “He probably knows the grass and these fantastic stadiums better than me – jokes Musetti -. He is a legend of this sportin recent years he has done unthinkable things. We know each other very well, our matches have always been great battles. I expect a very difficult match, one of the most difficult challenges, but I am ambitious, and I want to compete with the best”.
The women’s semifinals are scheduled for tomorrow, with Jasmine Paolini – seeded No. 7 (but “virtually” already No. 5 in the world) – looking for her first Slam final against Croatian Donna Vekic. Leading 2-1 in their direct clashes, Paolini dreams of becoming the first Italian to reach the second set on Saturday at the All England Club. The other semifinal sees Czech Barbora Krejčíková, No. 31 in the world and winner today over Latvian Elena Ostapenko (64 76(4)), against Kazakh Elena Rybakina, already a winner here in 2022, who got the better of Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (63 62).
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