Félix Auger-Aliassime is struggling these days, and he lost 6-2, 7-6 (2) to Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the second round of the Monte-Carlo Masters on Wednesday.
Musetti, 83and world player, took an hour and 42 minutes to defeat the 21-year-old Quebecer on the clay court of Rainier III. The ninth player in the world is now 1-2 in his career against Musetti. The Quebecer scored two aces and committed as many double faults. However, he was the victim of three breakages, against only one for Musetti. And that was the deciding factor.
It was another disappointing result for Félix Auger-Aliassime, who hasn’t had a good time since appearing in the final in Marseille last February.
He has just one victory in his last four tournaments, against Elliot Benchetrit, 436 in the world, in the first round of the Marrakech Open earlier this month. He was eliminated in the next round by Alex Molcan (65), after being ousted in the first round of the Masters from Indian Wells (Botic van de Zandschulp, 47) and Miami (Miomir Kecmanovic, 48).
On Wednesday, the Quebecer was unable to defend himself during the three break points offered to Musetti, an opportunist throughout the duel. He also struggled with his first serves, placing only 63% in play and winning only 65% of rallies on them. He was no more successful on the second serve, winning just 54% of those.
Musetti will now face Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman, who defeated Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics 6-0, 7-6 (4).
The other duels
In other matches, American Sebastian Korda upset Carlos Alcaraz of Spain 7-6(2), 6-7(5), 6-3 and will face the Indian Masters champion in the third round. Wells, his compatriot Taylor Fritz. The latter beat Croatian Marin Čilić 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 earlier on Wednesday. “It was tough,” Korda admitted of the wind blowing across the court. “On serve, the wind was quite strong, then it suddenly changed direction and caused a kind of whirlwind on the court. We never really knew what was hanging over us. »
Germany’s Alexander Zverev started his season on clay by beating Argentina’s Federico Delbonis 6-1, 7-5, after overcoming a 2-4 deficit in the second set. He will face Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta in the next round, who took advantage of Kazakh Alexander Bublik’s retirement as he trailed 3-4 in the third set.
For his part, the Norwegian Casper Ruud, the fourth seed, took the measure of the Dane Holger Rune 7-6 (5), 7-5. The Italian Jannik Sinner, the Pole Hubert Hurkacz and the Russian Andrey Rublev are also continuing their journey.