Lorenzo Musetti beat Carlos Alcaraz in a three-set thriller to clinch his maiden tour-level title in Hamburg on Sunday.
It took Musetti, the 20-year-old Italian, six championship point opportunities to outlast the top-seeded Spanish teenager 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-4 in the final that went on for two hours 46 minutes.
"I have no words because it was a roller-coaster until the end. I had so many match points. Carlos was so good on the match points, [I had] so many chances," Musetti said in his on-court interview.
"But I think the key of the match was to keep calm and [have] all the patience [with] myself because it was really not easy. Carlos was putting so much effort in the match points when he was down, so it was not easy to find the energy to come back.
"But I cannot describe what I am feeling right now. I think I am still dreaming."
This is Alcaraz’s first loss in six tour-level finals and first defeat in 15 matches at the ATP500 level this year. Despite the loss, he will be the new world number five in the updated ATP Rankings on Monday.
Ruud beats Berrettini, defends Swiss Open crown
French Open finalist Casper Ruud successfully defended his Swiss Open title in Gstaad with a come-from-behind win over Matteo Berrettini.
Top-seeded Norwegian Ruud lost the opening set 4-6 before bouncing back to take the second set 7-4 in the tiebreak against the second-seeded Italian, who won the title in Gstaad in 2018.
World number five Ruud dominated the deciding set, winning it 6-2 and became the first man since Spain’s Sergi Bruguera (1992-94) to defend the title in Gstaad.
“I changed [things] up a little bit in the third set especially, which helped,” said Ruud in his on-court interview.
“The games and the points go by here fast. If you are not ready and focussed, you can get broken or you can break, because the conditions allow you to.
“So it was key for me to hold my serve, I did that in the second set. Saving those break points was very important for me and everything went in my favour in the tie-break. So that was a bit fortunate. I just tried to keep that momentum going in the third set and I was able to get a break and play better and better throughout the third set.”
This is Ruud’s third title of the year after lifting the winner’s trophies in Buenos Aires and Geneva. Overall, four out of Ruud’s nine career titles have come in Switzerland.
“I think Switzerland is a country with a lot of history now in tennis, winning a lot of Grand Slams with Roger [Federer] and Stan [Wawrinka] the last 18 or 19 years,” said Ruud. “So it’s been an inspiration to everyone around the world, including myself, that they are able to come from a small country, sort of like Norway. Everything about Switzerland reminds me a little bit about Norway.”
For Berrettini, this was his first tournament since withdrawing from Wimbledon after testing positive for COVID-19. He had clinched the titles at Queen’s and Stuttgart.
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