Lorenzo Musetti already eliminated in Monte Carlo: bad blow for ranking

Lorenzo Musetti was quickly eliminated from the Monte Carlo Masters 1000. The finalist of the 2025 edition paid for his poor form due to an injury that does not allow him to play at his best at the moment: the Carrarino was defeated by the Monegasque Valentin Vacherot, who won in front of the home crowd with a score of 7-6 (6) 7-5.

The Azzurro struggled but succumbed after 2 hours and 9 minutes of play: Musetti started well getting a break right away, but his serve betrayed him immediately, allowing Vacherot to immediately put in a counterbreak. The Carrara tennis player saved a set point and dragged the set to the tie-break, where he was defeated 8-6.

In the second partial, the script repeated itself: Musetti, very passive, failed to find his tennis and suffered the break in the seventh game. With a champion’s reaction, the Azzurro managed to counterbreak at 5-5, but Vacherot then closed the match by winning the next two games.

The Monegasque will face Poland’s Hubi Hurkacz in the round of 16: thus only two Italians remain in the main draw, Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini.

Musetti’s defeat will also have heavy consequences on his ranking: his knockout caused him to lose all the points he gained from the 2025 final, and in the rankings he has now dropped from fifth to ninth place.

Musetti had expressed himself about his problems in the press conference as follows, “There is a part of me that has so much desire to get on the court, with a healthy body of course, ready to compete at this level, and this for me is the priority, and it was also a bit of the reason why I decided to take off from Miami, to prepare well for this clay court season.”

“I know it’s a busy season anyway, where I did very well last year, but I believe that the right mentality is to have to score points every year, not to defend them, so I think with this mentality I can express my best tennis on clay.”