The French Open ended in bitter disappointment for Lorenzo Musetti as he retired hurt in set four against Carlos Alcaraz.
The Italian failed to make his maiden Grand Slam final as he couldn’t build on the performance he delivered in the quarter-final against Frances Tiafoe.
Musetti took the opening set after breaking Alcaraz whilst leading 5-4 and managed to force a tie-breaker in the second, before losing it.
From there, it was all downhill for the world number seven. He was thrashed 6-0 in set three and then threw in the towel after two games of set four.
It’s Alcaraz who will contest the French Open final, and now Musetti is left to rue his injury that has essentially robbed him of a fair crack against the Spaniard.
Lorenzo Musetti shares details of the injury suffered against Carlos Alcaraz
It’s such a shame that Musetti was forced out of the contest against Alcaraz with such a cruel injury when he was playing so well.
Naturally, reporters were waiting to find out details of the injury he sustained, and it doesn’t sound overly positive.
He told his press conference: “Yeah, I mean, honestly, sad and disappointing on how it ended, but still a great match, so far, but yeah, I felt the beginning of the third, when I was serving, I started to lose a little bit of strength on the left leg.
“So I definitely was going worse and worse. So I decided to stop, I think it was, you know, the right decision to make, even if it was not what I wanted. And tomorrow I will do exams, and I will, of course, see and evaluate the situation.
“I started to feel it [worse] at the beginning of the fourth, that I couldn’t go for the rallies and I could not move like I was doing before and there was too much too much risk to take to go to go forward and to be able to, of course, show something, even for the crowd.
“And honestly, I felt from a serve, I felt something, so I started from that and then I, you know, called the physio, the medical and and then after that I started to think about it [retiring] more, and I started to feel that it was going worse and worse.”
Will Lorenzo Musetti be fit for Wimbledon
Given that the third Grand Slam of the year is just around the corner, it’s naturally a worry that Musetti has picked up this injury.
Queen’s is the next tournament that he’s down to play in, and after the retirement from today’s match, he was quizzed on how he thought he would be.
He continued: “It’s too early to say. Of course, the next tournament is Queen’s and then, of course, Wimbledon. We’re going to evaluate tomorrow what the exam will say, update you guys and make a decision on what’s next.”
Having reached the semi-final at Wimbledon last year, the hope will be that Musetti can make a full recovery and return to action quickly.
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