“I’m more than typical,” says Lorenzo Musetti, in his very good but heavily accented English. We’re in the back of a hired car on the way to Wimbledon in late June, discussing the 23-year-old upstart tennis star’s innate Italian-ness. “I have all the positive things and negative things. Let’s start with the negatives: Sometimes when things get spicy, we get even spicier. On the other hand, of course, we have the elegance, the style, the Italian culture that we bring to the courts—trying to be smooth.”
Many may try. But Musetti, in a meteoric year or two, has rocketed from a ranking in the 30s to as high as sixth in the world. “He got to the finals of Queens and the semis at Wimbledon [last year], got a bronze medal in the Olympics, and then had an incredible clay court season and made the semis at the French,” says coach, commentator, and former pro Brad Gilbert. “Almost out of nowhere, he started playing the best tennis of his career.”
Still, it’s how Musetti climbed those rankings that has set the tennis world on fire: Musetti, who has been working with the same hitting coach, Simone Tartarini, since the age of nine (“It’s been a very long dream,” Tartarini says), swings the racket with a grace and jaw-dropping form that hasn’t been seen since…well, since Musetti’s childhood idol, Roger Federer. Which might explain why network coverage of his matches inevitably includes slow-motion reveals of his masterful one-handed backhand, an admixture of elegance and sprezzatura that often renders even tennis’s talking heads speechless.
Musetti’s personal life has been blossoming as well, as he and his partner, Veronica Confalonieri—they met, of course, at a tennis club—had a son, Ludovico, last year, and another is due in November. (When not on the tennis tour’s worldwide traveling circus, Musetti and Confalonieri spend much of their time cocooning at home in Monte Carlo, swimming, boating, and cooking together—the latter something he picked up, yes, from his nonna and his mother.)
Musetti started playing tennis at the age of four in the town of Carrara, in Tuscany, he and his father hitting balls back and forth in his grandmother’s garage. By the time he was 10, he was traveling the world as a junior, and at age 12, winning Italian national championships.
“I grew up with Carlos [Alcaraz], with Jannik [Sinner],” Musetti says. “We were supposed to be this new generation coming up, and we had a lot of media pressure on us, a lot of expectations. But Jannik and Carlos are now the leaders of our tour, and I’m a top-10 player who is getting closer—so maybe they were right about us.”
The past year, though, hasn’t been without hiccups: On a roll at the French in early June, Musetti suffered a leg injury and had to retire from his semifinal match against Alcaraz. A few weeks later, a stomach virus meant he dropped more than four pounds in two days just before the start of Wimbledon, spoiling his chances (he exited in the first round). Afterward, Musetti took a couple days off, “enjoying a bit the summer here on the Côte d’Azur,” he says, before resuming his training for the American hard court season. He entirely avoided watching Wimbledon, save for the matches of his Italian friends Flavio Cobolli, Lorenzo Sonego, and Sinner, the eventual champion. (“I don’t like to see too much,” Musetti says. “It’s kind of sad to watch where you should be, where you wanted to be.”) Now well-rested and match-fit heading into the US Open, he seems poised for more big moves.
“The biggest challenge for him is going to be making a dent in Alcaraz and Sinner,” Gilbert says. “Can he go one step further and be as consistent as they’ve been? These are big questions, but he’s on the right path, that’s for sure.”
I see the tattoo on Musetti’s tricep—a spiking EKG line (Musetti’s actual heartbeat, he tells me) with a tennis racket in the middle—and ask him if he has others.
“I have three,” he says, turning his hand over toward me. “The heartbeat; another one here on the wrist, which says family, with an anchor. And on my rib with a phrase of a song by Luciano Ligabue: il meglio deve ancora venire.”
Translation: The best is yet to come.
In this story: Grooming, Laurence Walker. Produced by Partner Films. Set Design: Jess Griffin.
