In the film “The reserves”, a sporting comedy of 2000, the expert coach Gene Hackman turns to the Quarterback Keanu Reeves, aka Shane Falco, and says to him: “I look at you and see two men: the man you are and the man you should be. One day the two will meet and should come out a great football player”.

Well, that’s what is happening to Lorenzo Musetti, more and more comfortable in the role of the champion who, for talent, genius and numbers, has always been destined to interpret. Do not accuse me of blasphemy, but on the red in the last thirty years few players have shown class and magic like the Divin Lorenzo, from Monday in the top ten players in the world (number 8 if Ruud loses today’s final, 9 if he wins it) thanks to the sumptuous semifinal on the land of Madrid. On Friday Jack Draper was superior in the 3-4 decisive moments of a very high level challenge, but if the blue had managed to bring the match to the third set the feeling was that the inertia would change.

With the Montecarlo final in the eyes, choked on the most beautiful after a first set to scream against Alcaraz, Musetti left the Masters 1000 Madrileno with the authority of the great players. On the French Riviera, he had defeated Tsitsipas and De Minaur di Rimonta, in Spain of Blackout he swept away them, especially the Australian, who had printed the same expression of disbelief as when he is forced to challenge Sinner. Tennist with a constant performance on each surface and Top Ten true, Aussie seemed to be three categories under Lorenzo.

The semifinal against the Mancino English – one of the most fit players of the circuit – confirmed what Agatha Christie claimed: “A clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues make a test”. Semi -final in Wimbledon, bronze at the Paris Olympics and the frescoed tennis in the first two Masters 1000 on the red of this season: Lorenzo has made the big leap and is only 23 years old. As for Sinner, we just have to do one thing: enjoy the show.

Constant growth

Musetti is the sixth Italian tennis player capable of entering the best ten on the planet since the ATP ranking exists (23 August 1973). In order of apparition, before him, Panatta (best placement number 4), Barazzutti (7), Fognini (9), Berrettini (6) and Sinner (1) were successful. In almost 52 years only 184 tennis players crossed the milestone of the top ten: in short, a sufficiently exclusive club.

Always growing, always improving, in the face of those who often branded it as a tennis player with too many ups and downs. Lorenzo entered Top 100 on March 22, 2021, in Top 50 on July 25, 2022 and in Top 20 on January 9, 2023, where he has already spent 64 weeks, sixth blue of all time. He, Juventus, will enter the top ten on May 5: you call them, if you want, anniversaries.

The fact that he has done all this having always and only and only Simone Tartarini, his coach for 15 years, transforms a great story into a dream fairy tale, or rather from a book Heart. And authorizes a beautiful pernacchia to those who a couple of years ago supported the need for a super coach. Tartarini took a child who hit a ball well and made a champion. The top coach is him.

Not just talent

We rewind the tape. When Lorenzo at 8 and a half years knocks on the door of Maestro Simone Tartarini, it is evident to everyone that it is a child with a marked propensity to use the racket as a natural extension of his arm. Still, creatures of that particularly “brought” age for a sport are born in every neighborhood and every latitude. Think, therefore, that the only talent can lead them to the top of a discipline is pure naivety.

Tacking this climb, between increasingly higher and continuous flattering expectations, is not at all simple, for this reason many are lost on the street. It should be understood that talent is only one aspect, probably not even the most important. And it is essential to surround you with the right people and have the humility to observe the best. If the greatest in history (Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, in recent times, Borg, Lendl and Wilander in the 80s) have spent their lives trying to improve themselves, why not do the same?

Knowing the road is one thing, deciding to take it and then traveling it are two completely different worlds. The 2002 class of Carrara is chasing her dreams by painting tennis, making mistakes and learning, but has now included one of the few certainties of the devil’s sport: the career of a tennis player will never be determined by those 3 or 4 games in a season in which the ball seems great as an watermelon and you could also play closed eyes, but from all the others, none excluded.

The matches won on the third in Montecarlo and the success in the quarterfinals of Madrid against Diallo with a few hours of sleep on me, they tell us that Lorenzo click.

Now the Italians of Italy arrive and then the Roland Garros. Sinner will return and recover Alcaraz, Zverev will only go up to level and Draper is to date the most credible candidate for being the next new winner of a Grand Slam tournament. Still, none of these, we are sure, would like to find Lorenzo Musetti along his journey.

Let’s retrace his climb

The first match among the “great” is in an ITF in Pontedera in 2017: Lorenzo is just 15 years old and loses 6-2/6-3 from a 11-year-old Swedish older than him and who will not go beyond a best ranking of 177 ATPs. 2018 is the year of the Juniores final at the US Open, while 2019 opens with the victory of the Australian Open, the sixth Slam at the junior level conquered by an Italian player after Corrado Barazzutti (Roland Garros 1971), Diego Nargiso (Wimbledon 1987), Andrea Gaudenzi (Roland Garros and Us Open 1990) and Gianluigi Quinzi (Wimbledon 2013).

In April a couple of games won, between Santa Margherita di Pula in Sardinia and in the south of France, project him for the first time in the ATP ranking: Monday 8 April 2019 Lorenzo is the new number 582 of the ranking. He closes the season by winning a $ 15,000 in Türkiye and reaching the quarterfinals in the Ortisei Challenger, then won by Jannik Sinner.

In June of the same year Lorenzo had also become the number 1 in the world of the ITF Under 18 ranking. And if being very strong by Junior is not synonymous to become a strong professional when he grows up, it is equally true that an adult vertex tennis player has almost certainly had a junior career as a protagonist. In fact, there is an unwritten law that says that if you are a top 10 in the ATP ranking, you have also been among the best ten from Junior. But between saying and doing …

The great scalps

2020 is the year of its first exploit. At the International of Rome, it exceeds the three rounds of qualifying and defeats the three -time Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, the first success of a tennis player born in 2022 in the ATP circuit. In the second round he defeats the finalist of the US Open 2015 Nishikori and then sell to the German Koepfer.

Lorenzo’s growth is constant and quick. After winning the Forlì Challenger by beating four top 100, in 2021 he also shows his incredible qualities in the great stages. In the ATP 500 of Acapulco, Schwartzman (first success on a top ten), Tiafoe and Dimitrov, and then gave in to the semifinal to Tsitsipas, defeats. At 19, just turned, he enters the top 100 by occupying the 94th Piazza del Ranking.

They spend a few weeks and at the debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, Roland Garros climbs up to the round of 16, where he paints sublime tennis for two sets against the Novak Djokovic number 1 in the year in which the Serbian is practically unwittingly. 2022 is the year of the triumphs in the ATP 500 in Hamburg against Alcaraz and of the 250 in Naples on Matteo Berrettini, while in 2023 in Montecarlo he beat the number 1 of the world Djokovic for the first time and improved the best ranking in summer (15).

The birth of Ludovico and the consecration

At the moment of maximum rise, Musetti must manage a beautiful but complicated news: the girlfriend Veronica is pregnant and on March 15, 2024 Muzzle Become Ludovico’s dad. At 22, immersed in the frenetic life of a tennis globe trotter, it is completely natural to feel the need to assimilate and face such a significant change as that of becoming a parent.

It takes time, but the world of tennis does not wait. Lorenzo wraps himself a little but, just after taking Ludovico in his arms for the first time, he started again even stronger. The turning tournament is Miami, but it is on Earth who returns to make the big voice. He plays very well in the Principality and Paris, where he once again snatches two sets from Djokovic. Then it’s recent history. Final at Queen’s and semifinal in Wimbledon were elected for a few elected and represent the prelude to a dream Olympics, with the bronze medal on the neck on Philippe Chatrier next to the Serbian and Alcaraz: chills.

And here we are in the last few weeks. The Montecarlo final and the Madrid semifinal tell a truth: Musetti on Earth has a value higher than the number 8 or 9 which will be next to its name in the next official ATP ranking on Monday 5 May. Sinner, Alcaraz & C. are warned.