Almost two hours earlier, he had led Lorenzo Musetti by a set and a break, his title defence apparently firmly on track. Now here he was, with the time fast approaching 2am, relieved merely to have held serve at the start of the fourth set after losing all but four of the previous 17 games.

Ordinarily Djokovic would have been, if not in his element, then certainly within his comfort zone. Three years ago he trailed Musetti, a flamboyant 22-year-old Italian with a poetic one-handed backhand, by two sets to love on Court Philippe Chatrier. By the end, Musetti was a broken man, his cramping body racked with pain as he retired two games from defeat. 

With his back to the wall once more, on the same court, against the same opponent, and with a grand slam title on the line – not to mention the No 1 ranking, which he will relinquish to Jannik Sinner if he fails to make the final, and may relinquish even then – you would have expected to find Djokovic at his most defiant. Particularly given that Musetti beat him for the first time on the red clay courts of Monte Carlo last year. 

But the 24-time grand slam champion has been far from his all-conquering self this year, and so it was again. The usual fist pumps and roars of belligerence, the trademark willingness to take on the world, were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Djokovic grinned up to his wife, Jelena, who was urging him on with both fists clenched. Then he engaged in a gentle self-parody. “Idemo,” he mouthed silently – Serbian for “Let’s go” – before following up with a noiseless “Yeahhhh.” It might have been the most low-key self-exhortation of Djokovic’s career; an imitation of passion, rather than the thing itself. 

With a smile still lingering on his lips, Djokovic turned to resume battle. Meanwhile, Jelena struggled to suppress a giggle. Were they even taking this seriously? It would have been easy enough not to, given the tournament organisers’ decision to squeeze in an extra match beforehand. Then again, the backlog of matches caused by the atrocious weather in Paris over the past week has made for desperate times; here was an accordingly desperate measure. Djokovic and Musetti eventually took to the court more than two hours after the scheduled start time of 8.15pm, which was surely asking for trouble, given that their last meeting on Chatrier spanned almost three and a half hours.

But as it turned out, Djokovic wasn’t kidding. 

A quarter of an hour later, a Musetti service game that began with the Serb bent double on the baseline after a sinew-sapping 21-shot exchange, ended with Djokovic crushing a forehand to bring up a second break point, then converting it with a bold foray to the net. As the Italian’s forehand pass drifted wide, Djokovic looked up to Jelena again. This time, there was steel in his eyes, a look full of conviction and intent and belief. Djokovic waved his arms to stoke up what remained of the crowd. They barely needed the encouragement; they had been chanting his name with gusto since the beginning of the set. Now they did so again. 

“The crowd definitely got me going,” said Djokovic, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, after the cheers had faded. “I really needed that push, I really needed that energy. At 2-2 in the fourth, they started chanting my name, and I just felt a great new wave of willpower and energy. I think I was a different player from that moment onwards.”

So he was. Musetti salvaged just one more game, Djokovic eventually closing out a 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory at 3.07am, a tournament record. It was another entry in the record books for the Serb – a dubious honour on this occasion, perhaps, but one he was happy to accept. If there was a debate to be had about the sport’s latest scheduling farce, it was a subject for another day.

“I don’t want to get into it,” said Djokovic. “I have my opinions, but I think there are great things to talk about as we are talking about this this match today.

“I don’t want to be talking about the schedule. I think some things could have been handled in a different way but, you know, there’s beauty as well, I guess, winning the match at 3.30am if it’s the last one of the tournament. But it’s not, so I’m going to have to switch [on] all of my young genes and try to recover as quick as possible.”

After an indifferent few months by his standards, many have wondered if Djokovic still has the motivation to win a 25th major. This victory was a most eloquent riposte.

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Given that he was leading by a set and a break, just two games away from securing a place in the quarter-finals for the first time since 2019, there was little obvious cause for alarm. But the Serbian world No 1 knows from bitter experience how precarious such a position can be. 

A year ago, at the same stage of the tournament, Djokovic led Musetti by a near-identical scoreline only to suffer a shock three-set defeat that sent his clay-court campaign into a tailspin. Losses to Dusan Lajovic and Holger Rune followed, and although Djokovic recovered in time to win a third French Open title, the experience was not one he would wish to repeat in a year when he is prioritising a first gold medal at the summer Olympics, which will take place at Roland Garros in late July.

It is no secret that Djokovic traditionally takes time to get up to speed on the red dirt, and this year that challenge has been compounded by a rare lean spell by his stratospheric standards. Without a title in 2024 after losing to Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open semi-finals and suffering a shock defeat to Italy’s Luca Nardi in Indian Wells, the Serb arrived in Monte Carlo with low expectations. But after producing arguably his best performance of the season to sweep aside Roman Safiullin in his opening match, surely the noise surrounding the Musetti rematch was just that? Surely Djokovic wouldn’t be foiled by the same opponent, in the same round, for a second year in succession? 

One might imagine a 24-time grand slam winner is above such thoughts, but tennis is a game played in the mind, and the mind plays tricks even on the best. When Musetti swept a backhand pass beyond Djokovic to get the second set back on serve, just as he did 12 months ago, the parallelism became impossible to ignore. Feeling the pace in the afternoon heat, the Serb earned a time violation before that point and sat physically trembling at the changeover. It had the feel of a potentially pivotal moment. 

“I lost to him last year here [in] similar circumstances, I was a set and 4-2 up and then I lost the break,” Djokovic said following his 7-5, 6-3 win. “I must say that it was in the back of my mind when I was serving at 4-2, 40-15 and I lost a break of serve. 

“I was like, ‘Oh no, hopefully this is not a similar scenario to last year.’”

A combination of bold returning and outstanding defensive play ensured it was not. Breathing heavily but thinking clearly, Djokovic broke in the very next game, lashing a forehand winner off a second serve, and then served out the win to love. A potential turning point had become something altogether different: a reaffirmation of Djokovic’s mental strength, the latest expression of his iron will. As for the actual turning point, that had long since come and gone. 

By Djokovic’s own admission, Musetti was the better player for the first seven games. The 22-year-old exuded self-belief, unleashing huge topspin forehands, demonstrating the power and range of his sumptuous one-handed backhand, and at one stage even pulling off an outrageous jumping drop shot from a position so wide and so deep that few players would have dared even to imagine the stroke. 

Having conceded an early break, it was as much as Djokovic could do to avoid falling even further behind. But in the eighth game, with Musetti serving at 40-0, the match turned on a dime. The Italian drilled a forehand wide of the line, no call came, and both players hesitated momentarily, Djokovic plopping back a mid-court ball that Musetti thrashed into the opposite doubles alley. “It’s so clear, it’s like this,” the exasperated Serb told the chair umpire, simulating the gap between the line and the mark in the clay with his thumb and forefinger. 

That brought a chorus of jeers and whistles from the French crowd, which Djokovic first encouraged and then presided over like a conductor, waving his hands in time with the cacophony, much as he did in similar circumstances at last November’s ATP Finals. Thriving on the animus from the stands, Djokovic went on to break – and Musetti won just one of the next six games.

“I had this nice interaction with the crowd, and from that moment on he maybe lost his focus a bit, made some unforced errors, and the momentum shifted,” said Djokovic. “I feel like I, from that moment onwards, was playing better and managed to implement the kind of game that I really want tactically. 

“I’m not looking for trouble with crowd. I’m not there coming out, ‘OK, start whistling at me and I’ll play better.’ It’s not the kind of mentality I have. But if people start to react in a certain way that I don’t think I deserve, I don’t think it’s fair – if I don’t think it’s anyhow explainable – then I’ll react back. I have grown up with that kind of mentality that if somebody is doing something wrong to you, you stand your ground.

“Musetti until that moment, that game, was the better player. I didn’t feel so comfortable playing, because I was dominated by Musetti at that point. And then, you know, I guess it came at the right moment.”

Djokovic will face Alex De Minaur for a place in the semi-finals after the 11th-seeded Australian defeated Alexei Popyrin 6-3, 6-4.  

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In the past two months alone, Rune has been accused of faking injury in Munich, barracked in Madrid after erasing a disputed ball mark from the clay, and widely condemned for failing to acknowledge a double-bounce at Roland Garros.

Few, then, will have been surprised when the Danish second seed once again found himself in the eye of the storm at Queen’s Club, where he battled to a 6-4, 7-5 win over Lorenzo Musetti after taking a medical timeout that blew the Italian’s challenge fatally off course.  

On this occasion, however, Rune may have been a man more sinned against than sinning. There was a notable drop-off in the velocity of the 20-year-old’s serve after he received treatment on his right wrist at 4-1 down in the first set, and while sceptics will have noted that the Dane’s delivery regained pace as he served for the set, his average service speeds for the match were down by roughly 40mph compared with the previous two rounds. 

Unsurprisingly, Rune bridled at a reporter’s suggestion that he did not appear to be injured.

“I didn’t put a serve in [at full pace at] the start of the match because I felt my wrist,” replied Rune. “So I don’t know what you see, but that’s how I felt. If you’re in my body, you can say something like that. But if you’re not, you shouldn’t say something like that.”

It is not the first time Rune has been accused of deploying a medical timeout as a tactical weapon at a key juncture in a match. He faced similar allegations following his quarter-final win over Casper Ruud last month in Rome, where the Norwegian led by a set and a break only to lose his rhythm and his way after Rune received treatment on a shoulder problem. Yet the numbers appeared to support the Dane’s protestations here, and in truth Musetti’s problems were largely of his own making, the 21-year-old paying the price for his passivity as he failed to drive home the early advantage.

Musetti did, however, drive home a meaty overhead at 2-2 in the second set, striking Rune on the back as the Dane struggled in vain to take evasive action. Despite firing a short ball straight at Musetti earlier in the rally, Rune made his displeasure plain, directing a death stare at his opponent, who was quick to apologise.

The flashpoint, which recalled a similar incident between Cameron Norrie and Novak Djokovic in Rome last month, seemed to inspire Rune, who went on to save two set points as he sealed a place in a grass-court semi-final for the first time in his career.

“Of course, he can do what he wants,” said Rune. “I mean, it’s not the best thing to do, for sure. But again, it is legal. He can do what he wants, he can hit the ball where he wants to.

“For sure, this just gave me fire in the belly to beat him even more. I’m super happy to manage to beat him in two sets. It feels good. I’m in the semi-final; he’s not. So I’m happy.”

Such controversies tend to obscure Rune’s appetite for a scrap, a quality he will need if he is to maintain his encouraging trajectory on a surface where he had never won a match before this week. The Dane will face Alex de Minaur in the last four after the Australian seventh seed saw off Adrian Mannarino, the French world No 46, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

In the upper half of the draw, top seed Carlos Alcaraz will face Sebastian Korda of the US, who defeated Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-4, 7-6 (7-1). Alcaraz, who will regain the world No 1 ranking if he claims his first title on grass, recovered from 3-0 down in the second set to beat Grigor Dimitrov.

“This was my best match so far, and I’m going to say my best match on grass,” said Alcaraz of his 6-4, 6-4 win over the former Wimbledon semi-finalist.

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Of course, for a player of Djokovic’s stature, a record like that is little more than a statistical footnote. The Serb is infinitely more interested in edging ahead of Nadal in the hard currency of grand slam trophies, a feat he would achieve were he to lift the Coupe des Mousquetaires for a third time next weekend. 

Even so, to eclipse Nadal in any respect at an event where he has been so dominant that a statue has been erected in the grounds in his honour, one must clearly be doing something right. Djokovic’s little slice of Roland Garros history is a reminder that he has been comfortably the world’s second best clay-court player for almost two decades, quite an achievement in itself when you consider it is the surface on which he is least comfortable.

“I’m proud of it, but my attention is already on the next match,” said Djokovic, who will face Karen Khachanov, the Russian 11th seed, for a place in the last eight. 

“Obviously, quarter-finals, Khachanov, I know what my goal is here. I’m trying to stay the course mentally and not look too far. The performance of today gives me a great deal of confidence about how I felt, about how I played.”

With the possibility of a blockbuster semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz moving ever closer, such confidence will be needful. Alcaraz dispatched Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, the 17th seed and a man almost as flamboyant of shot as the Spanish world No 1 himself, in straight sets, matching Djokovic’s 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 score-line to accentuate the sense that the pair are destined to collide. Alcaraz won their only previous encounter, a tight three-setter at last year’s Madrid Open, but they have yet to meet over five sets at a major. 

“I think this was my best match in the tournament so far,” said Alcaraz, who will face former finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas, against whom he is unbeaten in four meetings, in the quarter-finals. “I think I played a good level.”

Musetti had hoped to dictate with his forehand, focusing his attack on Alcaraz’s backhand side to carve out space before delivering the coup de grâce to the opposite corner. A similar strategy served the 21-year-old well last summer in Hamburg, where he consigned Alcaraz to his first defeat in a final. But Musetti, not helped by a second-serve win percentage that languished at 33% in the first set and 38% in the second, was never allowed to play the match on his own terms. For all the sumptuous shot-making displayed by both men, Alcaraz was the more solid player at the key moments. 

“He is probably the best player in the world, and at the moment it’s really tough to beat him, especially on clay,” said Musetti. “I think he grew a lot since the last meeting we had in Hamburg.

“I think today he showed that he probably can win this tournament.”

Djokovic is all too aware of the challenge that lies ahead.

“You always follow the top guys in your half, how they’re playing,” said the Serb. “Of course you’re looking, you’re analysing everyone’s game. You’re basically following what’s going on in the draw.  

“But most of the attention is obviously focused on you, on what you need to deliver on the court, how you need to perform, how you need to win the next match. It’s only about the next step. But of course I do keep in mind what the others are doing.”

Djokovic’s vigilance extends to Nadal, who will be side-lined for a further five months after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on the hip injury that has kept him out of action since the Australian Open.

“I really hope that his rehabilitation process can go well and that we can see him next season,” said Djokovic. 

“I think that he’s so important for our game on and off the court, one of the greatest legends of tennis in the history of the game. We want to see a healthy Rafa, no question about it, playing for what he has announced [will be] his last season. 

“Hopefully he’s going to be able to do that.”

In the women’s singles, Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina’s fairytale run continued as she defeated Daria Kasatkina, the Russian ninth seed, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5). Svitolina, who is married to the French player Gaël Monfils and gave birth to the couple’s first child eight months ago, will face Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, in the quarter-finals.

“I have played [my] last two matches against Russian players so it will not change, everything will be same,” said Svitolina of the prospect of facing the Belarusian.

Sabalenka, meanwhile, who came through a testing match against former finalist Sloane Stephens on Sunday night, declined the opportunity to hold an open press conference for the second match in a row. The Australian Open champion said after her third-round win over Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova that she did not “feel safe” addressing the press after she was twice challenged by a Ukrainian reporter over the Putin regime’s invasion of the country, which is supported by Belarus.

“She’s playing really great tennis here in Paris, moving well,” Sabalenka said of Svitolina following her 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory. 

“[She’s] another player who is going to run a lot and put a lot of balls back, and I just have to be patient and wait for that perfect shot to finish the point.” 

The post Alcaraz and Djokovic move closer to French Open clash appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

It was Djokovic who denied Musetti a place in the French Open quarter-finals on his main draw debut at a grand slam two years ago, and Djokovic who once again thwarted him when he reached his first Masters 1000 quarter-final in Paris-Bercy last November. On the first occasion, Musetti led by two sets to love; on the second, he won just three games. Factor in a straight-sets defeat in Dubai in their only other career meeting, and you can see why Musetti, ranked and aged 21, might have felt some payback was in order as the pair met once again with a place in the last eight of the Monte Carlo Masters at stake.

It all ended in tears for Musetti, but for once the Italian’s dominant emotion was joy as he battled back from a set and a break down to claim the biggest victory of his career, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, in six minutes shy of three hours. 

“I am struggling not to cry,” said Musetti at courtside afterwards. “It’s really an emotional win because it was a really long match, three hours of match, suspended with the rain. 

“It was for sure not easy conditions since the beginning, because it was a little bit windy, cold, not like we played in the last [few] days. 

“I am really proud of myself… I am struggling not to cry, because I think it’s a dream for me.”

A powerful, tenacious performance was all the more impressive for the composure Musetti showed after the contest was rained off for an hour early in the deciding set. The delay, which came as Musetti was gathering momentum, must have seemed like manna from heaven to Djokovic, a precious chance to regroup after he had stood within two games of a routine victory at 4-2 in the second set. 

But Musetti stuck doggedly to the task on the resumption of play. A pair of huge forehands ushered him towards a break in the seventh game, and he held his nerve brilliantly at the death, crashing down his sixth ace to bring up two match points and eventually sealing victory on his fourth, after Djokovic had come within a point of levelling with a stunning backhand pass.

“He’s always such a unique player, you can never count him out,” said Musetti, who will face Jannik Sinner in the last eight after his fellow Italian saved a match point to defeat Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-1.

“I didn’t focus too much on him, I just had to think of what I had to do to beat him. Even if he plays bad, he’s still the No 1 in the world, so you can never count him out. You have to kill him like 10 times.”

Even so, this was no ordinary performance from Djokovic. Often vulnerable in the early weeks of the clay-court season, the Serb had spoken beforehand of the need to get “more time, more matches” to adapt to the surface, but he would surely not have anticipated a tally of 46 unforced errors. The majority came from his forehand, and only he will know how far those mistakes – not to mention the eight breaks he suffered in a serving performance woeful enough to evoke memories of last year’s defeat to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina – owed to whatever it was that persuaded him to wear a protective sleeve on his right arm, an item he last sported shortly before undergoing elbow surgery in February 2018. 

Also notable was a small patch of tape on Djokovic’s left hamstring, which he tore during January’s Australian Open, as he re-emerged from the rain break. Nothing, however, will have hurt the 35-year-old more than the incorrect line call that went against him with Musetti serving at 4-3 in the second set. Eager to make further inroads after earning a lifeline with a break in the previous game, the Italian pounced on a short return from Djokovic only to slam a forehand a couple of inches long. No call was forthcoming and, amid bemused looks from both players, Aurélie Tourte, the French chair umpire, was quickly on the scene to check the mark. As Tourte gestured towards the line, Djokovic was incredulous. 

“For me, it touched the line,” said Tourte, as Djokovic circled a mark a couple of inches behind the baseline. 

“But where is the mark?” asked Djokovic. “You are not showing me the mark.”

“I don’t have any other mark, I don’t have the mark and he doesn’t have it either,” replied Tourte, gesturing towards the linesman. 

Hawk-Eye, the electronic line calling system widely used at big tournaments on other surfaces, is rarely utilised on clay, although the technology is almost invariably in place and available to television companies. Replays showed that Djokovic had pointed to the correct mark.

Musetti held to love and subsequently capitalised on two double-faults from Djokovic to break. Apparently on the verge of victory only minutes earlier, the Serb suddenly found himself up against a reinvigorated opponent and a crowd full of baying Italians. No wonder he crushed a racket underfoot at the next change of ends, earning a code violation for his troubles.

Was it a turning point? Whatever was troubling Djokovic, he remained tight-lipped afterwards.

“You always hope for a good day in the office, but I’m not playing so great and he’s playing very well, so I knew it was going to be a tough match,” said Djokovic, who won just 39% of his second serve points. 

“It’s not a great day for me, so I’m not really in the mood to speak.”

Daniil Medvedev, the third seed, later came perilously close to following Djokovic out of tournament. Alexander Zverev, the Olympic champion and former world No 2, served for the match at 5-4 in the second and third sets, and held two match points in the decisive tiebreaker only for Medvedev to come through 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (9-7).

“That was a crazy match,” said Medvedev. “He served two times for the match, he probably should have done better, but that is also clay courts. 

“I tried to watch a lot of tennis before playing this tournament, and one thing that I saw is you can come back at any moment. The serve doesn’t count as much, so as soon as someone gets a little bit tight, the match can turn around in one second.”

Djokovic would no doubt agree.

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For all his gripes about the red dirt, it is a record that would be the envy of many. The 27-year-old marked his return to Monaco by adding another feather to his clay-court cap in the shape of a dominant 6-3, 6-2 victory over Lorenzo Sonego, an Italian ranked 45th. 

Sonego, who saved four match points against the French qualifier Ugo Humbert in the previous round, regards the terre battue as his best surface, an assessment that a title win in Cagliari and a Rome Masters semi-final would seem to endorse. But neither his clay-court pedigree nor the vocal backing of a sizeable Italian contingent, a staple at a venue that lies barely five miles from Italy’s western border, were sufficient to prevent Medvedev from claiming a tour-leading 30th win of the season. Not that the former US Open champion was getting carried away. 

“On clay it’s much more difficult for me to feel the game,” said Medvedev, who set the tone for a comfortable afternoon by reeling off the first three games of the contest. 

“After the match, it’s difficult for me to say if I played well or not, but I was told I played well, and the score was OK with me. I felt in control during the match. I’m very happy.”

To suggest that Medvedev is warming to a surface he once called “the worst in the world” would be an overstatement, however.

“I don’t like clay, and even if I win matches, I prefer hard courts,” he said. “But I will do everything to win all the matches.”

Medvedev will need to, given that Alexander Zverev awaits in the next round. The German Olympic champion, seeded 13th and twice a semi-finalist in Monte Carlo, defeated Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-4. Medvedev has won seven of their 13 meetings, but the pair have never previously met on clay, where Zverev, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros for the past two seasons and former title winner in Madrid and Rome, is by far the more comfortable of the two.

“I remember once I beat him in a final on clay in juniors,” smiled Medvedev. “But it’s going to be a different story [this time]. I saw him in the first two matches, he seemed to be in good shape. So I’m just going to have to be at my best.”

He was not far from his best at times against Sonego, anticipating brilliantly at the net to set up an early break, imposing his authority in the baseline exchanges, and winning 90% of his first-serve points. For all the power and deftness of Sonego’s shot-making, particularly off the forehand side, the Italian’s finest moments came when he was chasing lost causes. He came through an attritional service game to get on the scoreboard for the first time at 1-3, fended off two set points as he served to stay in the first set at 2-5, and fended off a match point in the penultimate game. 

But for all Medvedev’s consternation about a surface that forces him to make adjustments to a game that has earned him titles on the hard courts of Rotterdam, Doha, Dubai and Miami this season, Sonego’s rearguard actions were never enough to impede the Russian’s progress for long.

Taylor Fritz, the American eighth seed, earlier defeated former French Open champion Stan Wawrinka 7-6 (12-10), 6-2 to set up a last-16 meeting with Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic, who saw off Grigor Dimitrov 7-6, (7-4) 6-4. 

Lorenzo Musetti won his third consecutive 6-0 set at the event with a whitewash win over fellow Italian Luca Nardi. Musetti will face Novak Djokovic, who won his opener against Russian qualifier Ivan Gakhov in straight sets on Tuesday, for a place in the last eight. Djokovic traditionally takes time to hit his stride at the start of the clay-court season, but Musetti dismissed any suggestion that the top seed might be vulnerable.

“He’s still No 1 in the world,” said the Italian, who famously held a two-set lead against Djokovic at the French Open two years ago. “He’s still Novak. So I have to be ready to beat the No 1 in the world, not a guy who needs to prepare the clay season.  

“I have to enter the court with the right mentality, with the right mindset to beat the No. 1 in the world, not to beat someone who is preparing for the clay season.” 

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Musetti, who prevailed 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4 against Alcaraz despite missing five match points in the second set, said he would commemorate his breakthrough victory by having a tattoo done of the title of a song by Italian rock musician Luciano Ligabue.

“There is a song that is called Il Meglio deve Ancora Venire – in English, the translation is The Best is Yet to Come,” said Musetti, who also won a challenger event last month in the northern Italian city of Forli. 

“I think I will tattoo myself the phrase, for sure. Me and my coach, we wanted to tattoo that phrase after the win in Forli, but I think now it’s a little bit more important, this tournament. So when I get home, I will for sure do it and have a memory on my skin.”

It is a plan that seemed unlikely to come to fruition when Musetti arrived in Hamburg minus his rackets, which went missing in transit as he made his way to Germany from Bastad, the Swedish city where he lost his sixth consecutive tour-level match. Nor were the tattoo parlours of Carrara preparing for a visit from the Tuscan city’s most famous son when he twice stood match point down against Dusan Lajovic in his opening match after contracting food poisoning the previous night. 

As Musetti reflected, however, life – and tennis – can work in mysterious ways.

“When you don’t expect things, things happen,” he said. “I came here without luggage, so without rackets.

“I was in qualies, I was like three, four out of the main draw. Then I got in, so I didn’t need the rackets. 

“The first practice, I practised with Lajovic, with his racket. So you could imagine how I prepared [for] this tournament. But it’s like this – it’s like life. Tennis, I think, is the definition of life, because you can have a lot of ups and downs, and you never know what’s going to happen. For sure, this week is going to be memorable for me.”

It will be all the more so after Musetti halved his ranking to reach a career high of 31 in the world, good enough to earn a seeding at the US Open next month if he can maintain his form moving into the North American hard-court swing. 

First, though, there is more clay-court tennis to be played at the Croatia Open in Umag, where Musetti is seeded eighth and will no doubt harbour ambitions of facing Alcaraz in a second successive final. Drawn in the same half as his compatriot Jannik Sinner, Musetti knows he will need to maintain the mental toughness he showed in Hamburg if he is to build on his success.   

“I think that the key of the title here was that I had a really strong mentality, a really strong attitude in any situation that I went through,” said Musetti. “You have to be strong and be calm, even if it’s not easy.”

You also have to remember that the best is yet to come.

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That label was never likely to stick, of course. Not for a man of Musetti’s lavish gifts. Few young players even come close to matching Alcaraz’s extraordinary variety of shot, but the 20-year-old’s elegant all-court game marks him out as one of them. All the same, those notable defeats in Paris raised questions about Musetti’s stamina and mental fortitude that it has taken until now to answer. 

For all their ostensible similarities, Alcaraz is in certain crucial respects the antithesis of Musetti. While the Italian was contesting the first final of his career, Alcaraz was contesting his fifth in five months and sixth in all. While Musetti had previously been known as a man of near misses, Alcaraz has rapidly acquired a reputation as a force of nature who never knows when he is beaten. Twice this year the 19-year-old Spaniard has won from match point down, first against Australia’s Alex de Minaur in the Barcelona Open semi-finals and then at Roland Garros, where he overcame compatriot Albert Ramos-Vinolas in an epic contest spanning four hours and 34 minutes.

History looked set to repeat itself in Hamburg, where Alcaraz fended off five match points to force a deciding set. This time, though, Musetti found a way to flip the script, to answer the doubts about his staying power and mentality. For the better part of two sets, he had outplayed Alcaraz, his relentless consistency from the baseline interwoven with frequent and adroit use of the drop shot, some mighty hitting off the forehand, and an impressive display on serve. But an overhit forehand and a brilliant running pass from Alcaraz denied him two match points as he served for the title at 5-4, and further heartache followed as the Spaniard reeled him in from 6-3 down in the ensuing tiebreak.

Musetti’s misery was compounded when he double-faulted for the second and last time in the contest to concede the set, but he never let his head drop, biding his time throughout the decider before breaking in the final game. 

“It was a roller-coaster until the end,” said Musetti. “I had so many match points. 

“I think the key of the match was to keep calm and [have] all the patience in myself, because it was really not easy. Carlos was putting so much effort on the match points and when he was down, so it was not easy to find the energy to come back.”

Alcaraz was spurred on by an acute sense of injustice. As he served for the match, Musetti chased down a drop shot before pulling off a tremendous reflex volley. What only Alcaraz seemed to spot was that the ball had bounced twice. He remonstrated at length with the chair umpire, Aurelie Tourte, but it was to no avail.

Booed and whistled for his troubles, Alcaraz gestured towards his ear after levelling the match, demanding the appreciation his efforts merited. The crowd were not slow to respond. Alcaraz may have lost a final for the first time in his career but, on a day when he was never quite at his electric best, his reputation as a fighter was embellished every bit as much as his ranking, which rose one place to a career-high fifth.

“I think he deserved the win today, he played better than me,” said Alcaraz. “He was more aggressive all the time. I didn’t play my best, but I fought until the last ball and I’m really happy with that.”

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No one could have anticipated how the world No 1 would be received on his first appearance since being deported from Australia last month, and less than a week after conducting an interview with the BBC that many have since dismissed as a PR exercise. But Djokovic was cheered on to court at the Dubai Tennis Championships, where the locals were chanting his name and waving Serbian flags before a ball had even been struck. Five titles clearly buy you a lot of goodwill in these parts. 

Djokovic opened his bid for a sixth against Lorenzo Musetti, the gifted Italian teenager who stormed into a two-set lead against him at Roland Garros last year before succumbing to injury. It was not the easiest of draws, and Djokovic was given an unceremonious reminder of how the early stages of their only previous encounter had unfolded when the 58th-ranked Musetti opened with a pair of blazing winners. 

This time, though, Djokovic was quick to steady the ship. He made balls, he maintained an immaculate length, he established control early in the baseline exchanges. There was the odd aberration – a miscued backhand that careered off towards the front row, a few forehands that flew uncontrollably long or wide – but what Djokovic lacked in sharpness, he more than made up for in focus and intensity as he ran out a 6-3, 6-3 winner.

“I was feeling great, obviously, to get that kind of reception and welcome from the crowd,” said Djokovic after his first competitive match since early December. 

“With everything that was happening, I didn’t know how it was going to unfold for me on the court, how I was going to feel.

“Certainly, circumstances are different, [what with] everything that has happened in the last month and a half. So I was really looking forward to step out on the court.  

“I think Dubai is a perfect place for me to start a season because of the support and the fans that showed up and really cheered me on. Big Serbian community as well. Very nice to see Serbian flags around.”

Djokovic will certainly encounter more testing atmospheres, but here his difficulties were limited principally to a nip-and-tuck service game as he battled to preserve an early break at 3-2 in the second set. The Serb, who struggled at times to find his customary fluency on serve, had already recovered from 0-40 down midway through the first set, and here he was subjected to another stern examination. Three times Musetti held a break point; three times Djokovic denied him, finding penetrating first deliveries just when he most needed them. Otherwise calm and composed throughout, Djokovic roared at his box as he fought to maintain his advantage. He declined to reveal afterwards whether his impassioned outbursts were directed more towards himself or his team.

“I’m very pleased with the way I managed to hold my nerves in the crucial moments when I was facing break points,” said Djokovic. “I know I can always do better in terms of the quality of tennis. There’s some moments where I felt like I played really well, some moments where I was just losing the rhythm on my serve. I had a low percentage of first serves in. Of course, for the next match there’s always more to work on and improve.”

Also seeking to improve before his next match is Andy Murray, who was detained for almost three hours before he finally subdued the Australian qualifier Chris O’Connell 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-5. Murray, who found the court with just 44% of his first serves in the opening set, cut a frustrated figure as the 158th-ranked O’Connell seized the early initiative. But the former world No 1 fought his way back into contention and fended off four break points in the ninth game of the decider to seal a restorative victory following his thrashing by Roberta Bautista Agut in Qatar last week.

“I made it very difficult for myself out there,” said Murray, who will face either fourth seed Jannik Sinner or Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the next round as he pursues a landmark 700th career win.

“At the end I was trying to be more positive in terms of my emotion like when I played a good point. It was a struggle out there.  Yeah, just relief to get over the line. I did a great job to win that match. It would have been very easy for me to have lost.”

Murray responded to an inquiry about the source of his continued motivation by pointing out that he has shown he can still compete with the world’s best, even if a lack of consistency has proved his undoing since he underwent hip resurfacing surgery three years ago.  

“I have goals, and I still believe I can play much better,” said Murray, who has been without a full-time coach since he parted ways with Jamie Delgado at the end of last year.

“Since I came back from the hip surgery, I’ve won against [Alexander] Zverev, [Matteo] Berrettini, [Cameron] Norrie, [Hubert] Hurkacz, [Carlos] Alcaraz. There’s a number of guys that are currently in like the top 25, top 30 in the world. I think I’ve beaten 12 or 13 of them since I came back.

“The consistency certainly has not been there. I’m totally aware of that. But there has been times where I played well. The last sort of seven, eight months has been tough. I want to try and get my coaching situation sorted.

“There’s a reason why, mostly, guys on the tour travel with coaches. Having some consistency and continuity there I think will help me get a bit of consistency back.”

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