Rome (EFE).- Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who will be number 2 in the world at the end of the week, unhinged Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the semifinals of the Rome Masters 1,000 on Friday, in a match in which he was superior and which he closed in two sets, 6-3 and 7-6 (4), to play his first final in Rome.
With absolute merit, Alcaraz is a finalist in Rome, in a tournament in which before this edition he had only been able to play two matches, but in which he already has great memories: he closed the circle of the quarterfinals of all tournaments of this category and regained the number 2 just before Roland Garros.
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He met a Musetti who jumped onto the central court of the Foro Italico with their last encounter, the Monte Carlo final in April, in which he lost due to an injury, in his memory. He wanted revenge and ended up frustrated. Everything played a trick on him. His head, the unexpected initial wind, the pressure of playing at home and the possibility of an Italian final against Sinner. But, above all, Alcaraz. That was the biggest of his problems.
Because the Spaniard was a rock in the first set. He returned everything. He forced the Italian to go for the angles and found very, very few. He had an excessive amount of unforced errors that condemned his match, that rattled him and slightly facilitated the work of an Alcaraz who extended his great moment on clay, with a record of 26 wins and only 2 losses on this surface since May 2024.
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Blazing start
The Murcian broke in the first game. A brilliant start. Everything came crashing down on Musetti. Too many mistakes. From the baseline, into the net, on the drop shot, with the backhand… So many that he let three break points slip away and conceded a 2-0 lead. They were his worst minutes. Alcaraz rolled over him and went up 4-1, savored a “simple” first set that was only marred by a desperate attempt at a reaction from Musetti who found an isolated break.
“When you have long rallies, stay calm. You are superior to him,” Juan Carlos Ferrero, his coach, told him from the bench, trying to prevent his pupil from being overwhelmed by that small resurgence of Musetti.
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And it worked. Alcaraz got three set points that ended up unhinging the Italian, who broke his racket out of frustration.
The feeling was that Alcaraz had almost won the match, that Musetti was going to be unable to get out of his internal anger, his accumulated rage after so many mistakes. But the truth is that it was not an easy set for the player from Murcia. He lost his first two serves in the second set. Only a ‘break’ in between prevented the Italian from going up 3-0.
Deserved ‘break’
He didn’t give up. It is forbidden for him. He always stayed close, always lurking despite being behind. Until, in the eighth game, he found the deserved ‘break’ that tied the set (4-4) and allowed him to mentally finish off Musetti, who was about to give up on his serve, where he saved a match point.
He only delayed the inevitable. Alcaraz dominated at the start of the ‘tie-break’ and that was enough. He earned a three-point lead with the 5-2 that allowed him to even lose two of his serves and still be at 5-4. Even so, it all ended as it began. In style. Two breaks and completely demoralizing Musetti.
In the final, his first on Italian clay, he will face the winner of the match between Italian Jannik Sinner, number 1 in the world, and American Tommy Paul, number 12 in the ranking.
