Musetti-Fery in Tokyo: why three sets change everything
Lorenzo Musetti beat Arthur Fery less than four weeks ago, in the first round of the US Open, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5. On 30 September the same match is replayed in the first round of the Japan Open, on the outdoor hard courts of the Ariake Coliseum. Musetti remains the favourite. The margin, though, is not the same: in New York he had five sets to fix a match that kept getting worse, in Tokyo he has three.
The set curve in New York
The scoreline from Flushing Meadows reads in a single direction. Musetti broke Fery's serve in the first two sets, closing both 6-3; in the third he got there 7-5. The match did not get easier as the minutes passed, it got tighter.
The reason was largely on the other side of the net. Fery was making his absolute debut on the New York courts, having just climbed to his best ranking (no. 33 on 31 August), and he paid the price in the moments that count: double faults in the eighth game of the first set, unforced errors on heavy balls. Musetti himself admitted he had not played his best tennis, and explained the win through attitude and a tactical plan that was respected.
A hard-fought third set against a player who was not at his best is a sign of growth. The problem is that this sign, in a best-of-three, arrives once the match is already over. In a best-of-five Fery had time to read his opponent and two sets to use that reading. In Tokyo that time does not exist.
The real variable: Musetti's second hour
Musetti's 2026 is better explained by looking at where he stops than at where he arrives. On 12 January he was no. 5 in the world, the third Italian in history inside the top five. Today he has slipped outside the top twenty.
In between there is the win over Taylor Fritz in the round of 16 in Australia and then the retirement in the quarterfinals against Novak Djokovic while leading two sets to love. There is the withdrawal from Roland Garros for a rectus femoris injury. And there is the US Open, where after getting past Fery he went out in the second round against Dane Sweeny, no. 123 in the world, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, amid dizziness and nausea, in all likelihood heatstroke. His own description of the season was "an odyssey".
The level of the first hour is not in question. What is missing, this year, is what's left after that.
What Fery can change in four weeks
Fery is 1.75 metres tall and will not win this match on serve. His season has grown on the depth of his returns and on refusing to give away the neutral rally: a semifinal at Wimbledon as a wild card, with Grigor Dimitrov and Flavio Cobolli beaten along the way, the first Briton to reach a Slam semifinal starting from a wild card. On hard courts the picture is thinner: he arrives here from the final in Winston-Salem, lost to Ignacio Buse 3-6, 2-6. He knows hard courts. It is also the surface where his margin gets thinner.
If New York leaves one technical indication, it is that of Musetti's winners coming from the down-the-line backhand. Feeding that shot, from the baseline and on the return, is the fastest way to lose again. Fery has to play through the Italian's forehand and take the ball earlier, because standing still he loses the weight exchange.
The prediction, and what would disprove it
Musetti starts as the favourite, with an advantage thinner than the 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 of September would suggest. Slight, not clear-cut: his baseline level on hard courts remains superior, and the shorter format spares him the part of the match where he has made life difficult for himself this year.
The falsification condition is precise. If Fery takes the match to a third set, the prediction flips; if Musetti shows a physical problem in the first hour, as has happened to him several times this season, it flips even sooner. Worth watching: the number of breaks Fery concedes in his first three service games; in Bo3 he has no second half to recover them.
Whoever advances will most likely find Taylor Fritz, the third seed, in the second round. Neither of them can afford to get there having paid for the first round with three hours on court.
