Musetti ends Italy's 100-year wait, defeats Auger-Aliassime in Paris battle for bronze

p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-musetti/m0ej/overview'Lorenzo Musetti/a maintained his excellent form on Saturday with a hard-earned victory against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/felix-auger-aliassime/ag37/overview'Felix Auger-Aliassime/a in the bronze-medal match at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/paris/96/2024/results'Paris Olympics/a. /p

p The 22-year-old Italian regained his composure after a mid-match lapse to seal a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 triumph in the bronze-medal clash on Court a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/philippe-chatrier/ci59/overview'Philippe Chatrier/a. Musetti clinched a decisive break in the eighth game of the deciding set to prevail in a match of fine margins and become the first Italian tennis player to win an Olympic medal since Uberto de Morpugo at the 1924 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/paris/96/2024/results'Paris Olympics/a. /p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"BRONZE MEDAL FOR ITALY ????????a href="https://twitter.com/Lorenzo1Musetti?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@Lorenzo1Musetti/a defeats Auger-Aliassime 6-4 1-6 6-3 to win the Men#39;s Singles Bronze Medal!a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Paris2024?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#Paris2024/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tennis?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#tennis/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Olympics?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#Olympics/a a href="https://t.co/dNDKxdhomx"pic.twitter.com/dNDKxdhomx/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1819820567890895259?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"August 3, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

p Musetti was less clinical than Auger-Aliassime with his chances — the Italian converted three of 12 break points he earned, while the Canadian won three of four — but he stayed mentally composed to pull clear in the final stages of the match. With his two-hour, 17-minute win, he levelled his Lexus ATP Head2Head series against Auger-Aliassime at 3-3. /p

p The two-time ATP Tour champion Musetti defeated home favourite a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/gael-monfils/mc65/overview'Gael Monfils/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mariano-navone/n0bs/overview'Mariano Navone/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/taylor-fritz/fb98/overview'Taylor Fritz/a and defending Olympic champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a in Paris, before falling to top seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a in the last four and entering the bronze-medal match against Auger-Aliassime. /p

p The No. 16 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Musetti has won 22 of 28 matches since the start of a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a in late May. That tally includes runs to the championship match at ATP Tour events at the Queen's Club and in Umag, and he also reached his maiden Grand Slam semi-final at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a last month. /p

p [NEWSLETTER FORM] /p