Four reversals in five games! Musetti advanced to the final, netizens: There is a drama in the final, and the only win is on clay

Disastrous! Disastrous! With a comeback win over De Minaur in the semi-finals, Musetti made him a 'one-to-two' play in four of the five matches at this year's Monte Carlo Masters, making him only the third player since 1990 to win at least four sets on his way to the final of the Masters. Previous winners who have been able to do this were Haas Stuttgart 2001 and Simon Madrid 2008.

In the semi-finals, Musetti was still not favored against the world's top 10 De Minaur, who showed a very strong competitive form by sending a pair of eggs to Dimitrov in the previous round. On the other hand, Musetti, as a rare one-handed backhand player in men's tennis today, is difficult to tear apart the opponent's defense through power suppression when facing a player like De Minaur who has a comprehensive and balanced baseline shot, and once he falls into a backhand to backhand hold, De Minaur's sideways rise point attack can easily make Musetti lose his position on the court, so that it is easy to create a direct score.

Sure enough, in the first set of this game, De Minaur's attack on Musetti's backhand was very fierce, and with the momentum of the previous round, he broke Musetti's two service games in a row at the beginning, which also shocked many fans: Won't it be another double egg? Fortunately, Musetti broke De Minaur once in the middle of the set to save face, and in the end, De Minaur won the first set 6-1.

After a slight drizzly timeout in the second set, De Minaur looked still unstoppable, breaking early to make it 4-2. The fundamental problem is that Musetti's DSLR technique is mainly characterized by cutting changes and straight line attacks, and he does not have the same power as Wawrinka, which means that once he is stuck in a stalemate on the baseline, it is difficult to tear through De Minaur's defense, and once he risks sideways with his forehand, he is very prone to over-risking and making mistakes.

Just when everyone thought that the match had entered a predicament, Musetti suddenly began to exert his strength, and after breaking his opponent twice in a row, he won four games in a row and won the second set 6-4. I think the main reasons for the change in this process are: on the one hand, Musetti's service form has obviously improved, his serve protection has been very good, and the aggression of his serve has also been improved to a higher level; On the other hand, he is more focused, especially after serving, he does a better job of connecting to the next board. In contrast, De Minaur's striking speed was noticeably slower at the end of the second set, and his attacking resolve was not so resolute, which is also a long-standing problem for De Minaur, who often relied too much on his own defense in the match, but the game is so fast-moving.

In the deciding set, Musetti played better and better with the cheers of the crowd, although he missed the 4-2 and 5-3 advantage at one point and was dragged into a tie-break. But in the tie-break, Musetti suddenly exploded after 0-2, scored consecutive points and finally won the deciding set 7-4, and won the big score 2-1 to advance to the final.

Five matches, four reversals, if you ask Musetti the secret of his comeback, then we might as well open the Monte Carlo tournament manual and take a look at such a set of statistics: Musetti has saved 23 break points in this tournament, and with a second serve scoring rate of only 48%, he has relied on a 70% net scoring rate to fight his way out. What's even more amazing was that when the match went to the deciding set, his winning points skyrocketed to three times that of the first set.

In the final, his opponent opposite the net will be Alcaraz, to whom many people shouted, "The new king is about to be crowned, and the answer is self-evident." However, is that really the story played out like that?

Although Musetti has swallowed three consecutive defeats against Alcaraz, the only previous Musetti victory for the pair has come in Hamburg in 2022, when the 19-year-old ended Alcaraz's 11-game winning streak with his trademark SLR cut. After the match, Alcaraz admitted that "his spin completely disrupted my rhythm. However, now, the two of them are no longer the young boys they were two years ago, what kind of sparks will they create when they meet this time?(Source: Tennis Home Author: Lu Xiaotian)