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By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday March 19, 2021

 
Stefanos Tsitsipas

Stefanos Tsitsipas put his best foot forward on Friday to book himself in the Acapulco final on his tournament debut.

Photo Source: Abierto Telcel

19-year-old qualifier Lorenzo Musetti took fans on a thrilling joyride for nearly a week, but his party came to an end at the hands of a fiery and focused Stefanos Tsitsipas on Friday in Acapulco.

The Greek, determined from the start, pushed past Musetti in an entertaining tussle, 6-1, 6-3, to book a final with Alexander Zverev at the Abierto Telcel in Acapulco.

Tennis Express

“Acapulco has been treating me really well,” said Tsitsipas on court after the final.

The World No.5 will put his five-match winning streak on the line against the German, who defeated compatriot Dominik Koepfer in Friday’s first semifinal, 6-4, 7-6(5).

“Matches against him are never easy so, yeah, I’ll take it game by game,” Tsitsipas said of his rival. “We are both young, kind of new to the tour, we just got started and we are really hungry, we want to get the most out of it.”

Musetti, who stunned World No.9 Diego Schwartzman for his first Top 10 and ATP hard court win in the first round, also toppled Frances Tiafoe and Grigor Dimitrov to reach his first 500-level semifinal. But he ran out of gas against Tsitsipas, and struggled with an abdomen issue that had to be worked on by trainers after a one-sided opening set.

Musetti, who will make his Top 100 debut next week thanks to his performance in Acapulco, showed grit to make the second set highly competitive—and entertaining—but Tsitsipas would not bend and eventually reeled off the final three games to lock up his 13th career final appearance.

“It was an incredible run and an incredible week for me,” Musetti told reporters after the match. “Tonight Stefanos was too big for me.”


The scoreline hints at Tsitsipas’ dominance in the match, but Musetti did manage to engage and display some of his incredible shotmaking during the contest. The Italian plays a clever game, centered around feel rather than power, and he finds it hard to resist the allure of the drop shot. He used the tactic to great effect all week, but Tsitsipas was ready for it on Friday and frequently read and reacted in time to take the advantage away from Musetti.

The Italian can also change direction of rallies with his backhand with ease, and he did so on a few occasions on Friday, but for the most part Tsitsipas owned the baseline and forced Musetti into more reacting than creating, which took away the efficacy of his game.

It was a pitch-perfect performance in terms of intensity and execution for Tsitsipas, he was never rushed, never bothered, and very calm emotionally.

After he converted his fourth match point, and celebrated his victory, the crowd took a moment to serenade Musetti as he sat in his chair and packed up his gear. The Italian seized the moment and stood up and raised his arms as the stadium continued to cheer. It is rare that a losing player interacts in such a manner with an audience, and it was indicative of the manner in which the fans took to Musetti’s game and panache.


The 19-year-old plans to head to Miami next, where he is currently one spot away from making the main draw. After that he says he plans to go Europe and play on the clay, his favorite surface, in Sardinia, and potentially Monte-Carlo.

Keep an eye on this rising talent, he's got starpower and showed that he knows how to win on the big stage this week.

Zverev was strong in reaching his second Acapulco final against Koepfer, a hard-nosed southpaw who made the World No.7 work for pretty much everything he got on Friday. It was a very close two sets but Zverev was strongest when he needed to be and he booked his 23rd career final with his win.

He won his first career meeting against Zverev, but has not been able to gain the upper hand on the Greek since.

Neither player has won a title yet in 2021, so a lot is at stake.

 

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