Musetti-Fery: the Italian's US Open runs through his second serve
Lorenzo Musetti, world No. 14 and the 13th seed, opens his US Open on the Grandstand against Arthur Fery, a Wimbledon semifinalist as a wild card and No. 33 since 31 August. They have never played each other. The Italian is still the favourite, but one variable decides this match. In the Cincinnati quarterfinal against Frances Tiafoe, Musetti landed 53% of first serves: almost half his service points ran through the second ball. Fery's tennis lives on exactly that margin.
The rally Fery wants to play
Fery is 1.75 metres tall and gets nothing for free from his serve. His whole game starts on the return: he stands inside the baseline on second serves, hits deep down the middle, and stretches the rally until his opponent gives him a short ball. That is when he steps in. In the Wimbledon quarterfinal against Flavio Cobolli (6-4, 7-6(4), 6-0) the timing of his approaches was the difference, and it is the same weapon he used in the fourth round to come back against Grigor Dimitrov from two sets to one down (7-5, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6). A five-set comeback and, right after it, a quarterfinal closed out without dropping a set: this is a player who holds up over the distance and knows how to shorten points when his opponent hands him the rhythm.
Against Tiafoe, Musetti's second serve stayed too soft for two sets and the American returned from inside the court without ever taking a risk. If that ball sits there again, Fery gets the neutral rally he is looking for without having to build anything, and the match stretches out on his terms.
There is a counter-reading, though, and it is recent. In the Cincinnati round of 16 against Jaime Faria, a 7-5, 6-2 win, Musetti mixed heights and spins with his backhand slice and the second serve was not the hole it had been against Tiafoe. The sample is small, but it points to a consistency problem rather than a structural one.
Fery's serve is the margin on the other side
The same height limit applies in reverse. Against a serve that does not take time away from him, Musetti can return from further up and take the middle of the court on the third ball, which is the situation where his inside-in forehand opens the court instead of chasing it. His one-handed backhand then lets him change elevation: a low slice to force Fery to lift the ball from below, then a line-drive down the line when the Briton drops back.
That is the plan that closes the match in three sets. It requires Musetti to attack Fery's second serve rather than simply putting it back in play, because in a long rally, with both players flat-footed, the Briton runs better than almost anyone.
Hard courts, for Fery, are not Wimbledon yet
Fery has gone from No. 185 in January to No. 33 at the end of August, and the trajectory is real. His record on hard courts is still thin: in the second round of the Australian Open, after knocking out Cobolli, he lost to Tomás Martín Etcheverry 7-6(4), 6-1, 6-3 on a humid day, and after the first set he could not hold the pace. That is the only meaningful data point he has on a Slam hard court, and New York in early September asks for the same thing. The opposite of what his passport suggests needs saying: Fery came up at Stanford, on American outdoor hard courts, so the surface is not foreign to him. What he lacks is mileage at this level on these courts.
Then there is the calendar. Fery played a full week at Winston-Salem, all the way to the final he lost to Ignacio Buse 3-6, 2-6 on 29 August. Three days later he walks into a best-of-five draw. Musetti arrives off a shorter and more recent run, quarterfinals in Washington and quarterfinals in Cincinnati after two and a half months out with the rectus femoris injury that cost him Roland Garros and Wimbledon, but with fresher legs.
Against Tiafoe in Cincinnati: 53% first serves. What happens on the other half is tonight's match.
The prediction, and what could overturn it
Musetti starts as a narrow favourite. On the hard courts of Flushing Meadows his variety of spins and his return advantage against a small serve are worth more than Fery's recent form, and five sets reward the man who made the quarterfinals here twelve months ago. Prediction: Musetti in four sets.
The condition that flips everything is measurable from the first game. If the Italian's first-serve percentage stays under 55% as it did in Cincinnati and the match reaches a level fourth set, the ground becomes Fery's — a player who has already won a match from two sets to one down at Wimbledon and showed no physical cracks in that comeback. At that point ranking counts for little and what counts is who has played more matches over the last three months.
