Musetti rallies to beat O’Connell, advances to Chengdu QFs

Lorenzo Musetti battled past Christopher O’Connell 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(4) on Saturday to advance to the quarter-finals at the Chengdu Open.

The top seed recovered from 5-3 down in the deciding set to notch a personal-best 35th win of the season and progress to his seventh quarter-final of the year. The 22-year-old Musetti hit 33 winners, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to close out the match in two hours, 37 minutes.

This is what it means. This is tennis.@chengduopen | #ChengduOpen pic.twitter.com/VNgf8mxk9y

“That was a difficult match, he [O’Connell] was serving pretty sharp and really precisely and I didn’t find so many break points,” Musetti said after the match. “But at the end I stayed focused, I played the right tactics and I managed to play well throughout the match.”

The Italian will meet fifth seed Adrian Mannarino in the quarter-finals, after the Frenchman survived a scare to beat home hope Yi Zhou 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-4.

Mannarino rallied from 1-3, 0/40 down in the deciding set to overcome the 19-year-old wild card and advance to his second quarter-final of the season (Dallas). The No. 46 in the PIF ATP Rankings saved eight of the 12 break point chances against him.

By sealing victory in two hours, 45 minutes, the 36-year-old became the oldest quarter-finalist in the tournament’s history.

“It was really hot conditions out here, I was feeling really tired in the match and it wasn’t easy because I could see that he [Zhou] was super fresh,” Mannarino said in his post-match interview.

“But at the end he was playing too good so I thought ‘Okay, try to put one more ball in the court’ and I was lucky that he made some mistakes at the end.”

The Frenchman defeated Musetti in their only previous Lexus ATP Head2Head encounter (Indian Wells 2023).

Second seed Alexander Bublik defeated Federico Agustin Gomez 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final eight.

The four-time ATP Tour champion hit 25 winners en route to victory over the qualifier. The 27-year-old Bublik also saved four of the five break points against him to close out the match in 97 minutes.

Bublik will face either #NextGenATP star Shang Juncheng or eighth seed Roman Safiullin in the next round.