Musetti rallies to beat O’Connell, advances to Chengdu QFs

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-musetti/m0ej/overview'Lorenzo Musetti/a battled past a href="https://www.atptour.com/en/players/christopher-o'connell/o483/overview"Christopher Orsquo;Connell/a 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(4) on Saturday to advance to the quarter-finals at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/chengdu/7581/overview'Chengdu Open/a./p

pThe top seed recovered from 5-3 down in the deciding set to notch a personal-best 35th win of the season and progress to his seventh quarter-final of the year. The 22-year-old Musetti hit 33 winners, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to close out the match in two hours, 37 minutes. /p

pblockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"This is what it means. This is tennis.a 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/VNgf8mxk9y"pic.twitter.com/VNgf8mxk9y/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1837445958306877850?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 21, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script/p

p ldquo;That was a difficult match, he [Orsquo;Connell] was serving pretty sharp and really precisely and I didnrsquo;t find so many break points,rdquo; Musetti said after the match. ldquo;But at the end I stayed focused, I played the right tactics and I managed to play well throughout the match.rdquo;/p

pThe Italian will meet fifth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/adrian-mannarino/me82/overview'Adrian Mannarino/a in the quarter-finals, after the Frenchman survived a scare to beat home hope a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yi-zhou/z0cq/overview'Yi Zhou/a 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-4. /p

pMannarino rallied from 1-3, 0/40 down in the deciding set to overcome the 19-year-old wild card and advance to his second quarter-final of the season (Dallas). The No. 46 in the PIF ATP Rankings saved eight of the 12 break point chances against him./p

pBy sealing victory in two hours, 45 minutes, the 36-year-old became the oldest quarter-finalist in the tournamentrsquo;s history. /p

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pldquo;It was really hot conditions out here, I was feeling really tired in the match and it wasnrsquo;t easy because I could see that he [Zhou] was super fresh,rdquo; Mannarino said in his post-match interview. /p

pldquo;But at the end he was playing too good so I thought lsquo;Okay, try to put one more ball in the courtrsquo; and I was lucky that he made some mistakes at the end.rdquo;/p

pThe Frenchman defeated Musetti in their only previous Lexus ATP Head2Head encounter (Indian Wells 2023)./p

pSecond seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-bublik/bk92/overview'Alexander Bublik/a defeated a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/federico-agustin-gomez/gj16/overview'Federico Agustin Gomez/a 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final eight. /p

pThe four-time ATP Tour champion hit 25 winners en route to victory over the qualifier. The 27-year-old Bublik also saved four of the five break points against him to close out the match in 97 minutes. /p

p/p

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pBublik will face #NextGenATP star Shang Juncheng in the next round./p

pShang upset eighth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roman-safiullin/sx50/overview'Roman Safiullin/a 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 in their first meeting. The Chinese lefty hit seven aces and 24 winners to reach his fourth tour-level quarter-final in the 2024 season./p

pThe 19-year-old is third in the PIF ATP Live Race to Jeddah./p

pnbsp;/p

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