Third seed Frances Tiafoe beat sixth seed Lorenzo Musetti of Italy 6-7 7-6 6-2 in the quarterfinal of the ATP Stuttgart Open on Friday. The match lasted for well over two hours, as the 25-year-old American scraped past his opponent after a three-set battle. Tiafoe will take on Marton Fucsovics of Hungary in the semifinal on Saturday. But what was the tale of his tape in his victory over Musetti.
Lorenzo Musetti passed Frances Tiafoe often:
Tiafoe attacked Musetti by rushing the net quite often, but the latter managed to pass him on a number of occasions with his powerful groundstrokes from both wings. The 21-year-old Italian showed great resilience to break back each time after Tiafoe broke him on a couple of occasions in the first set. Tiafoe led 5-3 at one point and then served for the set at 6-5, but Musetti showed a lot of grit to keep bouncing back. The set eventually went to a tiebreak with the Italian eventually winning after a tough fight.
Tiafoe’s excellent shotmaking paved the way for his victory:
Midway through the second set, Tiafoe stopped rushing the net and concentrated on his shotmaking from the baseline. He hit a few wonderful down-the-line running forehands and some fabulous returns to put the pressure back on the Italian.
After the second set was decided in a tie-break once again, Tiafoe raced to a 3-0 lead in the third. Musetti then broke back to love to reduce the deficit, but Tiafoe again got a break of serve to regain the lead. The American then managed to serve the match out.
Musetti fired aces at regular intervals – 17 in total – but Tiafoe’s excellent shots in the second half of the match took the game away from him. Should the American be able to exhibit the same kind of form against Fucsovics, the Hungarian will face an uphill task.
Main photo credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
