Lorenzo Musetti had a turbulent day at Roland Garros on Tuesday. The Italian reached the semi-finals in Paris for the first time in his career at the expense of American Frances Tiafoe, but he was almost disqualified.
The 23-year-old Musetti kicked a bouncing ball away out of frustration when he was 5-3 down in the second set. It hit the body of a linesman, who was a few meters away from the world number seven.
Tiafoe pointed out the incident to the referee, but he did not send Musetti off the court. The Italian got away with a warning. He couldn’t complain about that. In the past, several players have been disqualified for similar incidents.
One of them was Novak Djokovic, who hit a ball against a linesman out of frustration at the US Open in 2020. That wasn’t intentional, but he received the most severe possible penalty in his fourth-round match against Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta.
Musetti did not let himself be distracted by the incident on Court Philippe-Chatrier. He did lose the second set to Tiafoe, but then pulled the match towards him and won in four sets: 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 and 6-2.
In the last four, Musetti will play against the winner of the match between Tommy Paul and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz. That match will be played later on Tuesday. Paul is seeded twelfth at Roland Garros.