For the first time in history we have two Italians at the Masters tournament. The strongest of all, Jannik Sinner, the 4.0 player, who best interprets modern tennis in the wake of his predecessors Agassi and Djokovic; and the most tennis player old style of all, Lorenzo Musetti, who seems to have catapulted into 2025 aboard the Delorean from “Back to the Future” straight from the 70s, a bit Nastase and a bit King Roger.

The ATP Finals, which started yesterday in Turin, see the best pair of players we have ever had in Italy at the start. Yet, if Jannik wins at the box office in people’s hearts (and in criticism only when he renounces the blue), because we have never had a number one and a multiple Slam champion and perhaps we didn’t even dare to dream so strong, the extraordinary rise of the Divine Lorenzo risks going unnoticed or even appearing obvious to the most inattentive.

It is already among the greatest

The final of the ATP 250 in Athens, lost on Saturday after three hours of great tennis against the eternal Djokovic, is only the latest indication of Musetti’s entry among the best five players on the planet. Thanks to the injury suffered in the semi-final of Roland Garros, which caused him to miss the entire season on grass, Lorenzo was forced into a tour de force to search all over the world for the points needed to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals.

The pass arrived in the nick of time, but it’s been at least 18 months since Carrara’s talent has been turbo-charged, adding to his infinite technical baggage those indispensable ingredients to aim for the greatest goals: continuity of performance, ability to choose the most effective solution and not the most beautiful, and that mental strength that allows you to win even the matches in which your confidence and your tennis are not at their best.

From July 2024 to today, Muzzle he reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon and Roland Garros, the finals in Monte Carlo and Queen’s, the semi-finals in the Masters 1000 in Madrid and Rome, the quarter-finals at the US Open and an Olympic bronze that we hadn’t seen in Italian tennis for 100 years. He has lost all the finals he has played (the last title dates back to 2022), but this is part of a growth path that cannot cause alarm: if he plays like yesterday, he will lose few finals.

Here, one of the next steps to take is precisely to capitalize on the moments in which he expresses himself at his best even against the best, where giving away a couple of “15s” in decisive moments means losing. “Musetti played better than me for an hour and a half,” confirmed Djokovic himself in the post-final press conference. Having said that Djoker is probably the player who in history has won the greatest number of matches, rebelling against defeat with every drop of sweat, Lorenzo will have to find within himself the necessary tranquility to recognize those 5-6 decisive points of each set and manage them with greater clarity.

If he succeeds, his hunting ground will have no boundaries: in terms of age, current potential and growth margins, the Italian number 2 is already immediately behind Jannik and Carlitos.

Because it can still go up

Expertly guided for 15 years by Simone Tartarini (who, if not a Master who takes a boy from Under 10 tournaments to the ATP Finals can be defined super coach?), Musetti has managed to constantly improve so far season after season. In seven years he went from world number 1 at junior level to number 6 at the ATP last June (his best ranking), introducing new weapons (above all the serve) and becoming a more complete and therefore competitive player on every surface.

It’s difficult to make a comparison with the greats of the past and his task – hunting down the top two players on the planet – is a very complicated one. Djokovic and Murray succeeded when the first two positions were occupied by Federer and Nadal, but we are still talking about extraterrestrials. However, there is a tennis player who carved out an important space for himself in that era of phenomena: Stan Wawrinka, who Musetti defeated in Athens last week. Having started quietly in Federer’s shadow, Wawrinka at 23, Lorenzo’s age, had just entered the top 30 and won the first of his three Slam titles at the age of 29. He had injuries and setbacks, he found probably the best players in the history of tennis on his path, and yet he won three majors, defeating two of them in the final (Djokovic, twice, and Nadal) and also finding time to collect 16 ATP titles and an Olympic gold.

Observing Lorenzo’s best moments, there is not a single reason why he cannot (at least) do the same, internalizing the Samuel Beckett quote that Wawrinka himself decided to tattoo on his arm: “Ever tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.” Literally: “You’ve always tried. You have always failed. It does not matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

And now the ATP Finals

Lorenzo, who arrived in Turin over the weekend, was included in the “Jimmy Connors” group with Alcaraz, De Minaur and Fritz, while in the “Bjorn Borg” group there are Sinner, Zverev, Shelton and Auger-Aliassime. What to expect from Musetti on the fast concrete of the Inalpi Arena? And how important will the matches in Athens be?

Musetti is the tennis player who, among the eight qualifiers, has played the highest number of matches (21) from September to today. After him there are Sinner (17), Auger-Aliassime (17) and Di Minaur (15). He is also the only one to have taken to the court in the last week, where he played three out of four matches that ended in the third set for a total of nine hours on court in matches against Wawrinka, Muller, Korda and Djokovic.

The only one-handed backhand player among the top 8 will make his debut Today in the afternoon session against the American Fritz with the awareness of having raised the level on indoor hard courts – even if the Turin surface is very fast – and perhaps also with the lightness of being able to show his talent in the Masters tournament without having too much to lose. After all, for Lorenzo these ATP Finals had already evaporated. At least for a dozen seconds, that is, from Djokovic’s first winner in the final in Athens until Nole whispered to him that he wouldn’t be coming to Turin.

A sliding doors to be played with a free mind and arm, precisely the conditions in which the talent of Muzzle it can reserve nasty surprises for any opponent.