Playing early matches on Saturday at the ATP Cincinnati Open Masters 1000, neither Lorenzo Musetti nor Casper Ruud could get off to a winning start. Musetti currently sits at 9th in the ATP live rankings, while Ruud is 11th in the world. Both players are in similar positions in the Race to the ATP World Tour Finals top eight.
Bonzi Upsets Musetti After Nearly Three Hours
Facing world #63 Benjamin Bonzi, the 29-year-old French veteran came out on top in a tight contest. Bonzi had a chance to serve out the first set but was broken and lost it 7-5. The second set was all Bonzi — he led 5-1 and, despite failing to serve it out at 5-3, closed it 6-4 to force a decider. The final set was hard-fought, but Bonzi won 7 of the last 10 points and took the tiebreak, sealing the nearly three-hour battle.
Musetti didn’t play poorly, but he was well below his best and failed to convert break points with any efficiency. Bonzi, meanwhile, has now won two straight three-setters in Cincinnati and will next face Stefanos Tsitsipas.
For Musetti, who reached a career-high ranking of #6 earlier this year, this is another tough loss on hard courts. He’s now dropped three-setters at Washington, Toronto, and Cincinnati in 2024, with two of those defeats coming to unseeded opponents in early rounds. If the 23-year-old wants to become an elite, all-surface threat, he must improve on hard courts — the only surface where he has a sub-.500 career record and no deep runs at the Australian or US Open.
The faster the court, the more Musetti struggles. Data suggests that even after resurfacing and new courts, Cincinnati remains one of the fastest stops on the ATP Tour. Court speed is a hot topic ahead of the US Open, with Alexander Zverev suggesting in an interview that the new surface may actually be playing slower than last year. With court pace varying depending on time of day and temperature, we’ll continue to get a better read on conditions at the newly renovated venue. Players like Carlos Alcaraz will face an interesting challenge here as they fine-tune ahead of their Grand Slam campaigns in New York.
Casper Ruud’s Summer of Frustration Continues
In a match just nine minutes shorter than Musetti’s, Casper Ruud fell to another French opponent — world #70 Arthur Rinderknech. The 30-year-old earned back-to-back wins in Mason, Ohio, with a 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 victory. Rinderknech was rock-solid on serve, saving 8 of the 9 break points he faced and controlling many of his service games. Ruud, by contrast, hit more errors than winners and found himself pinned to the baseline for long stretches. After edging the first set in a tiebreak, Ruud was broken to drop the second set, and the third was one-way traffic.
It was a bold and confident performance from Rinderknech, who was 0-4 against Ruud before this match. The win marks his third top-20 victory of the season. Ruud, meanwhile, has been out of rhythm since winning Madrid earlier this year. With doubts over his form, his chances of reaching the second week of the US Open — where he was a finalist in 2022 — look uncertain. He holds just a 13-7 career record at Flushing Meadows.
These two results were among the biggest headlines from Cincinnati’s early rounds, with more top players taking to the court on Sunday.
Main Photo Credit: Syndication: The Enquirer
