Lorenzo Musetti went up to his seventh tour level on Monday and second of the season in the Chengdu Open, where he swept Alexander Shevchenko 6-3, 6-1 aside at the ATP 250.
The top-ranking Italian reached his Maiden ATP Tour final last year on Hard Courts in Chengdu and fell to Shang Juncheng in the title match. The 23-year-old strived to go one step further, won the 23-year-old 92 percent (24/26) against Shevchenko and, according to Infosys ATP statistics, did not get a breakpoint to continue to the championship match.
Musetti is in one place until the seventh in the PIF ATP Live Race to Turin and wants to make his debut about home floor at the Nitto ATP Finals. Musetti’s countryman Jannik Sinner has already qualified for the prestigious end-of-year event, held from 9-16 November.
Musetti is the first player to reach multiple Chengdu finals in the history of the tournament (since 2016) and will compete for his third title at tour level and only since Naples in 2022 when he meets Alejandro Tabilo in the final.
Qualification Tabilo continued his impressive run in Chengdu with a 6-4, 7-6 (0) triumph against the fourth seed Brandon Nakashima after an hour and 36 minutes.
Tabilo won titles in Auckland and Mallorca last year, but he has struggled for the past 18 months. He arrived in Chengdu with a record of 5-13 in the season, but only dropped one set on his way to the final, after he had survived a decisive tie-break against Lloyd Harris in the second qualifying round.
“I think it was very solid during the entire game,” said Tabilo. “He served well, so I had to stay there and wait. I started well today, served and I am happy with the performance. It has also been up and down for a few months, so just so happy to be back in another final.”
The 28-year-old Chileen is 28 places until no. 84 in the PIF ATP Live ranking list and is set to return to the Top 100 after the ATP 250 event. Musetti’s meeting against Tabilo will be the first in the Lexus ATP Head2head series of the couple.
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