Turin Update: Musetti Stays Hot in Vienna, Stops Tiafoe

Fresh off his first title in two years, won last week in Lyon, Lorenzo Musetti continued his fine form with a 7-6(6), 7-5 win over Frances Tiafoe on Wednesday in Vienna, dashing the American’s hopes of clinching his debut ATP Finals appearance in Turin.

Tiafoe, still in seventh place in the Race to Turin standings, is in good shape, but he’ll have to wait until the Paris Masters to learn his fate.

He had a pair of set points in the opening-set tiebreak, after saving a set point while serving at 5-6 in the set.

But it was Musetti, riding high on confidence, who took the final four points of the tiebreak, then engineered a late break in the second set for 6-5 before serving out the win at love.

Tiafoe will now wait to see how his competition fares this week in Basel and Vienna.

He’ll keep a particularly close eye on Novak Djokovic, Alex de Minaur and Rafael Jodar, the three players who are behind him and closing in the standings.

As it stands, Tiafoe still has a significant lead over Jodar (171 points at the moment) and even bigger advantages over De Minaur and Djokovic.

Djokovic made it 33 consecutive wins against Frenchmen with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Ugo Humbert in Basel, while De Minaur faces Learner Tien in Vienna later today.

Jodar will face Valentin Vacherot in second-round action in Basel on Thursday.

Only three spots in the ATP Finals have been claimed at the moment – by Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton – and five openings remain. Flavio Cobolli, Daniil Medvedev and Arthur Fils all have a chance to move closer this week in either Basel (Fils) or Vienna (Cobolli and Medvedev).