Richard Gasquet beats Lorenzo Musetti in Winston-Salem

An interesting clash of generations happened in Winston-Salem as Gasquet defeated Lorenzo Musetti 7-6(5) 4-6 6-1.

Both of these players did not get enough playing time before the US Open so they both elected to participate in the Winston-Salem event. The start of the match was fairly competitive but without breakthroughs for either player. Gasquet was the first one to break but he dropped his serve in the very next game.

Eventually in the tiebreak, the French player was able to take control and win it 7-5. Gasquet opened the 2nd set with some trouble having to save break points in the opening game. After doing so successfully his game stabilized a bit but he also failed to exert too much pressure on Musetti.

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The Italian went ahead 5-4 at the perfect time and then held his serve from 15-40 down to win the 2nd set and force a decider. It looked like we would get a very strong decider but it was anything but. Musetti completely folded dropping it 1-6.

The culprit was the serve as he was unable to hit his first serve at all. The 2nd is rather weak and Gasquet exploited it easily.