It’s the all-or-nothing match at the Olympics. Win and you secure a medal, lose and you are off the podium along with 60 other participants.
That is the pressure facing Lorenzo Musetti and Felix Auger-Aliassime on Saturday in Paris, where they will battle for bronze in men’s singles. This marks their sixth encounter, with Auger-Aliassime leading the head-to-head series 3-2. However, Musetti has won two of their three clay-court meetings–including two in a row (7-6(3), 3-6, 7-5 at the 2021 Lyon tournament and 6-2, 7-6(2) at the 2022 Monte-Carlo Masters).
The 16th-ranked Italian has been outstanding this summer. He was runner-up at Queen’s Club, made a surprising run to the Wimbledon semifinals, and posted another runner-up showing in Umag. Musetti booked a semifinal spot at these Games by beating Gael Monfils, Mariano Navone, Taylor Fritz, and Alexander Zverev before falling to Novak Djokovic on Friday.
This season has been a different story for Auger-Aliassime, who salvaged his ranking (currently 19th) with a trip to the Madrid final (lost to Andrey Rublev) but has otherwise struggled. Similar to the Madrid Masters, though, from out of nowhere the Canadian is playing well at the Paris Olympics. He reached the semis with wins over Marcos Giron, Maximilian Marterer, Daniil Medvedev, and Casper Ruud before getting double-breadsticked by Carlos Alcaraz. Auger-Aliassime also captured the bronze medal in mixed doubles on Friday with compatriot Gabriela Dabrowski.
Pick: Musetti in 2
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Felix has had a terrible schedule at the Olympics. Not only has he had to play 2 matches on several days, he has also bee scheduled so that the matches had very little time in between. Take for example his semi final match. He had to play the semi and then almost right after the match play for bronze in mixd doubles yet the 2nd semi was scheduled much later in the day. (You think the tournament director would have at least switched to the semis around in the schedule.
10 million on Musetti @ 1.70