Gazzetta dello Sport name Lorenzo Musetti over Jannik Sinner as their ‘Italian Athlete of the Year'

Lorenzo Musetti has beaten out Jannik Sinner to win the ‘Italian Athlete of the Year’ Award, named by Gazzetta dello Sport. 

It has been a brilliant campaign from the Italian who has beaten out the 2024 champion Sinner. This is despite the world number two triumphing in two Grand Slams, the ATP Finals and the Paris Masters as well as being almost untouchable to anyone who competed against him, forming a stunning rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz at the top of tennis.

For Musetti he is starting to close the gap after enduring a much-improved 2025. It was a season which saw him break a number of barriers. This included him climbing into the top 10 for the very first time, peaking at an extraordinary 6th in the world.

"Lorenzo Musetti, who entered the world top ten this year, is the last poet left with a racket in his hand," Gazzetta dello Sport wrote on Instagram. "He is the living proof of what the blend of talent and hard work can produce. People used to say he was an unfinished talent, as if breaking into the world’s top twenty – something he did in 2023, not even 21 years old – were child’s play. Well, this year “Lollo” has satisfied even the insatiable. A fantastic 2025, enriched by many firsts: breaking into the top ten, his first Masters 1000 final, his first qualification for the ATP Finals. He is the Athlete of the Year at the Gazzetta Sports Awards."

It is fair to say that his Grand Slam form was inconsistent. A third round exit at the Australian Open was not the result he was hoping for as he went down to Ben Shelton. After some early exits in the Sunshine Double, he impressed on clay as he made it to a maiden Masters 1000 final in the Monte-Carlo Masters. Enroute he defeated the likes of Matteo Berrettini, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex de Minaur. He even took the lead in the final against Alcaraz. Unfortunately, the Spaniard would move up a few gears as Musetti managed to win just one more game.

He continued to catch the eye of many in a terrific clay swing. A semi-final in the Madrid Open was followed by another defeat to Alcaraz in the last four of his home event, the Rome Open. It would be the six-time Grand Slam winner who halted his progress at Roland Garros. After going a set to the good, Alcaraz fought his way back before Musetti retired in the fourth set. While this was a disappointment, it was his second Grand Slam semi-final appearance, seeing him rise to that new high of sixth in the world.

He was desperate to continue this form into the grass swing but could not back up the Wimbledon semi-final in 2024 after losing out to Georgian qualifier Nikoloz Basilashvili. He struggled to find his best game on hardcourt but was back to his best at the US Open. He met Sinner in the quarter-finals, and was comprehensively defeated.

He would eventually have the last laugh when beating the four-time Grand Slam champion out to becoming Italian Athlete of the year. Despite all of this, the 23-year-old has not won a title since 2022. He reached two finals at the end of the year. The first came in the Chengdu Open where Alejandro Tabilo surprised him to win the event, punishing the devastated Musetti who squandered two match points. The other would come in the Hellenic Championship when Novak Djokovic came back from a set down to seemingly end his hopes of qualifying for the ATP Finals.

However, thanks to the Serbian pulling out, Musetti was rewarded with a debut campaign in Turin. It would not be the homecoming he would have wanted, failing to make it out of the group with just one win against de Minaur. Similar to Sinner, he would then skip the Davis Cup Finals, watching on from a distance as Italy took home a third title on the bounce. This is a solid foundation for Musetti to build upon in 2026.