Lorenzo Musetti was beaten by Carlos Alcaraz in a disappointing finish to his Monte Carlo Masters campaign.
Musetti struggled physically against Alcaraz, winning just one more game after taking the first set of the final.
The Italian is still set to rise to a career-high ranking after reaching the biggest final of his career, with the potential to increase that even further during a busy clay court season.
However, there was still speculation over whether Musetti would be able to recover in time for his next ATP tournament.
Lorenzo Musetti withdraws from his next ATP tournament
Musetti was next scheduled to compete at the Barcelona Open as the eighth seed, and was already drawn to play Spaniard Jaume Munar.
Although, this was put in doubt after Musetti’s movement looked particularly hampered during the final set of the Monte Carlo Masters final against Alcaraz, where he won just eight points.
Just a matter of hours after the conclusion of the Monte Carlo Masters final, Musetti put any speculation about his Barcelona Open participation to rest.
After Musetti withdrew from the ATP 500 tournament, where he reached the semi-finals in 2023, it was confirmed that he would be replaced by a lucky loser.
With Musetti a seed player, Frances Tiafoe has also been upgraded as the ninth seed into his place and will now play Munar in the first round instead.
After pulling out of the Barcelona Open, Musetti will now eye the Madrid Masters as his next tournament.
Lorenzo Musetti’s coach explains why he did not retire in the Monte Carlo Masters final
With Musetti clearly not able to compete to his desired level, there were some questions over why he did not just retire from the match.
The Italian’s long-term coach Simone Tartarini told Ubitennis that Musetti had been struggling with a quadricep issue from the morning of the final, but refused to retire due to the calibre of the match.
“This morning, during the warm-up, Lorenzo had a problem with his quadriceps,” said Tartarini. “We took all the necessary precautions, but, during the match, he felt more and more pain.
“He was already in pain after the first set, then – after playing on top of it at a certain point – he was in a lot of pain. But obviously, he didn’t want to retire since it was a final: he stayed on the court for the sake of it because the final must be played.”
It is currently unclear as to how severe this injury is for Musetti, having spent over 13 hours on court during his run to the Monte Carlo Masters final.
Despite this, it has still been an overall positive week for the the new world number 11, with Alcaraz predicting big things for Musetti in the future.
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