Musetti survives O’Connell to reach Chengdu Open quarter-finals
Lorenzo Musetti edged out Christopher O’Connell 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (4) on Saturday
Italian Lorenzo Musetti, the top seed, advanced to the quarter-finals of the Chengdu Open by edging out Australian Christopher O’Connell 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (4) at the Sichuan International Tennis Center on Saturday.
It took Musetti two hours, 40 minutes to take out O’Connell, who remained in the lead for the majority of the match.
The Australian started tough by clinching the opener in the tiebreaker. Musetti struck back in the second set to level the proceedings but soon found himself close to an exit when O’Connell broke him in eighth game of the third set to serve for match.
The world No 19 was then required to dig deep and he did to take the third set into a tiebreaker. He eventually closed the fight by converting the first match point he created.
Musetti, ranked No 19, will play Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, the No 5 seed, next.
O’Connell, ranked No 75, beat Russian Pavel Kotov (6-4, 7-5) in the previous round of the Chengdu tournament.
Chengdu ATP 250, other second-round results (Sichuan International Tennis Center, hard, USD 1.171.655, most recent results first):
- Roman Safiullin vs. Juncheng Shang
- Federico Agustin Gomez vs. Alexander Bublik
- Adrian Mannarino beat Yi Zhou (WC): 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-4
- Pedro Martinez Portero (4) beat Aleksandar Vukic: 6-3, 6-4
- Nicolas Jarry (3) beat Lukas Klein: 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4
- Yannick Hanfmann beat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (7): 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
- Alibek Kachmazov (Q) beat Taro Daniel: 7-6 (1), 6-1