Lorenzo Musetti has passed the quarterfinals of the ATP 250 in Stuttgart 2024, thus reaching Matteo Berrettini in the semi-final for an Italian derby that will give away a place in the last act of the German grass tournament. The Tuscan took advantage of the withdrawal of his opponent Alexander Bublik in the opening stages of the third and decisive set.
An absolutely unexpected and unpredictable epilogue, because the Kazakh had not previously highlighted any noteworthy physical problems. In fact number 17 in the world raised the white flag without much warningshaking hands with the blue during the change of court after giving up serve in the first game of the third set.
Bublik had never asked for a medical timeout or the intervention of the physiotherapist during the normal breaks for the change of court, even if in fact during the second set he had begun to move worse (evidently due to a physical problem), deciding to shorten the rallies in any way with solutions that were sometimes wicked but not entirely unheard of in his matches (without injuries). The match was therefore interrupted with Musetti’s success due to Bublik’s retirement with a score of 4-6 6-1 1-0.
