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Musetti defeats Gojo 7-6 6-3 in Stuttgart

By Myre Aberdan

STUTTGART, GERMANY - JUNE 09: General view during the round of 16 match between Oscar Otte of Germany and Denis Shapovalov of Canada during day four of the BOSS OPEN at Tennisclub Weissenhof on June 09, 2022 in Stuttgart, Germany. (Photo by Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)
STUTTGART, GERMANY - JUNE 09: General view during the round of 16 match between Oscar Otte of Germany and Denis Shapovalov of Canada during day four of the BOSS OPEN at Tennisclub Weissenhof on June 09, 2022 in Stuttgart, Germany. (Photo by Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images) /
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The match started poorly for Gojo, with a series of uncharacteristic errors lending Musetti the first break of the match. But a sniper of a cross-court two handed backhand gave Gojo the break back. Gojo’s balls seemed to be landing deep into Musseti’s side of the baselines, often at times seeming as though every few balls were catching the line. At 2 all, 30-30, Musetti simply out strategised Gojo and made an almost chess-like move to ice off her forehand to get a break point opportunity. However that came and went with Gojo drawing level at deuce again. The next passage of play was simply extraordinary- with Musetti employing a Federer-esque inside out forehand to push Gojo from corner to corner. A defensive masterclass from Gojo- as well as forcing an out ball from Musetti allowed for her a break point opportunity over Gojo.

Just as that break point came, it also went- with Musetti firing off an ace to get back to deuce. However Gojo was her own most enemy, firing off long balls- something that Musetti did not seem to be doing at all. Regardless, this was beautiful tennis in the men’s game- clean ball striking and extended rallying which employed everything, from slice backhands to overhead smashes. Nevertheless, a ball dumped into the net gave Lorenzo Musetti, incredibly, the lead at 3-2.

In Gojo’s service game, Musetti went back behind on the rally to obtain a love-15 early game lead. The very next point, Musetti employed a powerful forehand to Gojo’s left blind side gaining further traction in this 4-2 game. However against the run of play, Gojo arrested the bleeding and got on the board in this game. Regardless, Musetti was not to be denied, coming out of seemingly nowhere to be the front runner in this match, and snatched a 4-2 lead, breaking Gojo in the process. However, Gojo fought back and pushed it to a tiebreak-but lost the tiebreak and the first set 7-6.

The second set started off an an almost inverse fashion. Musetti led 2-0 in the second set, before Goko flipped the table. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, as Gojo was beaten to the punch, dropping 4 of the next 6 games and lost the second set, and match, 6-3.

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