By Jürgen Fritz, Mon 25 Jul 2022, Cover photo: © JFB

In Hamburg, 20-year-old Lorenzo Musetti won an ATP tournament for the first time. In a high-class final, he beat Carlos Alcaraz. Musetti thus moves into the top 50 of The True Tennis World Ranking for the first time. The previous Hamburg champion Pablo Carreño Busta falls out of the top 15. In Gstaad, world No. 7 Casper Ruud successfully defended his title in the final against Matteo Berrettini.

Musetti wins his first ATP tournament

Until yesterday, 20-year-old Lorenzo Musetti had never reached the final of an ATP tournament. The 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, the greatest talent since Nadal and Djokovic, was already in his seventh ATP final including the Next Gen ATP Finals and has never lost one so far, was the clear favourite. But then everything turned out differently at the Hamburg European Open.

Musetti played at the top limit, won the first set 6-4 and led 6-3 on his own serve in the second set tiebreak. But Alcaraz fends them all off. In total, Musetti cannot use five match points because Alcaraz plays great, keeps his nerves, turns the tiebreak and wins the second set. Now you think Musetti will hardly be able to maintain this incredible level after this mental setback and might go down in the third set if Alcaraz plays himself into a frenzy. When that happens, he overruns almost everyone with his unbelievable power and playfulness. But fiddlesticks, Musetti keeps up the level in the third set and, although Alcaraz is now putting even more pressure on him, he is able to get through all his service games, remains calm and concentrated and at 5-4 suddenly, out of nowhere, manages the decisive break to 6-4, 6-7, 6-4 and wins an ATP tournament for the first time in his career and then a 500 (D category).

For this, the Italian receives 20 points and thus rises from approx. 60 to 35 in the true tennis world rankings. The Hamburg finalist Alcaraz receives 12 points, remains in position 5, but moves closer to the top four and can pull away a little from Tsitsipas and Ruud to 6 and 7.

Ruud wins again in Gstaad

At the Swiss Open in Gstaad (E), Norwegian Casper Ruud successfully defended his 250 clay title. In the final on Sunday, he met Italian Matteo Berrettini, who had to withdraw immediately before his first Wimbledon match after contracting COVID-19. Berrettini played tremendously well in the first two sets until 6-4, 6-6 from his point of view. But then his game broke in the tiebreak, which he lost 4-7. From then on, he did not really get back into the match and the very strong Ruud, who did not let up a bit, won the third set clearly 6-2.

This was Ruud’s third tournament win this season and his fifth in the last twelve months. However, he will not be able to defend his title in Kitzbuhel, Austria, this week, where he was seeded first, as in Gstaad. He had to cancel the tournament at short notice due to shoulder pain. So next Monday Ruud will lose some points. Matteo Berrettini, who was seeded 2nd in Kitzbuhel, also cancelled the tournament at short notice due to fatigue. The current No. 14 has no points to defend this week, but so can’t get any closer to Hurkacz on 13 either. The two cancellations could, however, be a chance for Dominic Thiem, who won matches on the ATP Tour in Bastad and Gstaad for the first time in 14 months, showing marked improvement after his long wrist injury. In Gstaad, he only lost in the semi-finals (3.5 points) to Berrettini, who was playing great. Thiem will be competing in Kitzbuhel this week and could earn more points there to slowly work his way back up the rankings.

The True Tennis World Ranking

And this is how the current JFB 52-week men’s tennis world ranking looks after Hamburg (D) and Gstaad (E):

Here you can read how The True Tennis World Ranking works

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