Jannik Sinner will try to continue his run at the Rome Masters when he battles Grigor Dimitrov for a quarterfinal spot on Friday. Another up-and-coming Italian, Lorenzo Musetti, also has a great chance to advance.
(15) Grigor Dimitrov vs. (WC) Jannik Sinner
Sinner may not have a crowd behind him at this Internazionali BNL d’Italia, but he is playing like he has a home-court advantage. The 19-year-old Italian opened with a 6-2, 6-1 thumping of Benoit Paire and then upset Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-1, 6-7(9), 6-2 on Wednesday. Sinner dominated most of the match against the third-seeded Tsitsipas and did extremely well to bounce back mentally in the third set after squandering a 5-2 lead in the second.
Up next for the world No. 81 on Friday is a first-ever meeting with Dimitrov, who reached the third round by beating Gianluca Mager and Yoshihito Nishioka in straight sets. This is the 22nd-ranked Bulgarian’s first tournament of the restart in which he has won back-to-back matches, as he lost to Marton Fucsovics in round two of both the Cincinnati Masters and the U.S. Open. Sinner, who pushed Karen Khachanov to five sets at Flushing Meadows, is already 3-1 on clay this summer and has both the firepower and the mental toughness to get past Dimitrov.
Pick: Sinner in 3
(Q) Lorenzo Musetti vs. (Q) Dominik Koepfer
Amazingly enough, Sinner won’t be the youngest Italian in action on Friday in Rome. That distinction belongs to Musetti, an 18-year-old who has announced himself on tour this week with victories over Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori. Musetti, who had to qualify just to get into the main draw, did not even drop a single set to either Wawrinka or Nishikori.
He now has the pressure of being favored, as Koepfer also had to go through qualifying. The 97th-ranked German survived all three of his qualifying matches in three sets before taking out Alex de Minaur–in a third-set tiebreaker–and Gael Monfils. It has been an especially tough week for Koepfer, whereas Musetti is on an absolute roll in his home country and probably can’t be stopped until a potential quarterfinal date with Novak Djokovic.
Pick: Musetti in 2
WWW?
Musetti looks like a big potential for the future