Musetti battles past Mannarino, advances to Chengdu SFs

p Can a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-musetti/m0ej/overview'Lorenzo Musetti/a forge a late surge to a a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a debut?/p

pTop seed Musetti overcame a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/adrian-mannarino/me82/overview'Adrian Mannarino/a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 on Sunday to advance to the semi-finals at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/chengdu/7581/overview'Chengdu Open/a. /p

pThe Italian, who was a semi-finalist last year in Chengdu, struck 23 winners to take his Lexus ATP Head2Head record against the Frenchman to 1-1. The No. 19 in the PIF ATP Rankings also saved three of the four break points against him to close out the match in two hours, 16 minutes. /p

pThe 22-year-old Musetti recorded a personal best 35th win of the season. The Italian is 15th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, but has moved within 915 points of eighth-placed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-de-minaur/dh58/overview'Alex de Minaur/a following his victory against Mannarino. Musetti has now reached six semi-finals in his past eight tour-level events./p

pblockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"2023 - SFbr2024 - SFbrbr(1) a href="https://twitter.com/Lorenzo1Musetti?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@Lorenzo1Musetti/a returns to the Last 4 in Chengdu 6-2 5-7 6-2a href="https://twitter.com/ChengduOpen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@ChengduOpen/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChengduOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#ChengduOpen/a a href="https://t.co/zXBtjkztj2"pic.twitter.com/zXBtjkztj2/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1837784839610581160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 22, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script/p

p ldquo;I think today was a really great match from both players, he [Mannarino] raised the level the second set and he was starting to serve better and giving me less chances to break him and go forward,rdquo; Musetti said in his post-match interview. ldquo;So I had to be really focused each point to make it happen and at 2-2 [in the final set] when I made the break, that was the key moment that probably changed the match.rdquo; /p

pMusetti will next face qualifier a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alibek-kachmazov/k0e6/overview'Alibek Kachmazov/a in the semi-finals. /p

pKachmazov upset third seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/nicolas-jarry/j551/overview'Nicolas Jarry/a 6-3, 6-4 to record the biggest win of his career and advance to his maiden Tour-level semi-final. /p

pThe No. 252 in the PIF ATP Rankings lost just one point on serve in the match, according to Infosys ATP Stats. He is the lowest-ranked semi-finalist in tournament history. /p

pldquo;Irsquo;m playing very good, very solid this week. So Irsquo;m hoping I can continue this way,rdquo; Kachmazov said after the match. ldquo;Today was a little bit better, it was a little bit easier to play long rallies and just a perfect day again. /p

pldquo;Itrsquo;s an amazing week here for me already but I hope not to stop and not to think about it too much, and just continue to playrdquo;. /p

pnbsp;/p

[NEWSLETTER FORM]