Sinner, this is not a good record at all: this record perfectly reveals, if anything, how critical the situation is now.
It is difficult, not to say impossible, to summarize all the records he has collected during his very bright career. The risk of forgetting some of them, having truly hit so many, is quite high. We will therefore avoid doing so, not least because his greatness, at this point, is proclaimed beyond the records and stars pinned on his t-shirt.
There is no doubt now that Jannik Sinner is one of the strongest tennis players Italy has ever had. He has the talent, he has the temperament, he has the determination and stubbornness it takes to become a champion worthy of the name. The same cannot be said, however, at least at the moment, of a certain compatriot of his who, just like Jannik, seemed destined to write a splendid page of Italian tennis.
Someone may have already figured out by now that it is Lorenzo Musetti we are talking about. Of that tennis player, a strong one, whom we all thought was ready to explode but who, instead, continues to be a wallflower on the fringes of the circuit. Rivers of ink have been wasted on his account and keyboards consumed to no end. And yet, no one can explain how it is possible that, although he has a unique talent, he fails to perform at his best on the court.
Sinner flies and Musetti trudges: what a bad record
Lorenzo the Magnificent, as he was renamed in his heyday when he seemed ready to explode, continues to trudge. He won the first game of the season but lost the second, although his rival, on paper, was nowhere near as good as him.
And this defeat – he has lost 7 of his last 8 matches played, which is in itself a rather alarming figure – only confirms the trend that has earned him, unfortunately, a record in reverse. A record that we will not rush to celebrate because it is indicative, alas, of the many steps backward the Carrara player has taken in recent times.
Musetti is the top 30 tennis player who has lost the most challenges to opponents who are outside the world’s top 100. Which means he has failed to tame rivals he could have taken a bite out of. And that there is an urgent need, now more than ever, for timely and radical intervention that can get him back on the right track, if only to salvage what can be saved. As well as to find out whether we had got it wrong or whether it is true, instead, that behind his pessimistic attitude lies the champion we had seen in him.
