French Open semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti out of this year's edition with injury

Lorenzo Musetti has a quad injury that will keep him out of Roland Garros. Antonietta Baldassarre / Insidefoto via Getty Images Share articleLorenzo Musetti, the talented Italian capable of ethereal tennis on a clay court, is the latest man to miss the French Open because of an injury. Musetti, who led Novak Djokovic by two sets to love in January’s Australian Open quarterfinals before a muscle tear forced him to retire, announced on social media Wednesday that he suffered a rectus femoris injury while competing at the Italian Open in Rome. “Unfortunately this means I won’t be able to compete in Hamburg and Roland Garros — news that is incredibly hard to take,” Musetti wrote. The rectus femoris is a muscle on the inner part of the thigh, one of the four quadriceps muscles. It’s the only quadriceps muscle that crosses both the hip and knee, making it nearly impossible to function athletically without it. Musetti’s injury is the latest turn in a sport that has seen its list of potential contenders for the next men’s Grand Slam title turn into an infirmary manifest. Carlos Alcaraz, the defending champion, announced last month that he will miss Roland Garros with a wrist injury. Three-time champion Novak Djokovic has played just one match on clay this year, missing nearly the entire European swing so far with a shoulder injury. He appeared ill while losing to Dino Prižmić last week in Rome. Former world No. 4 Jack Draper has missed the clay swing with a right knee injury. 2024 finalist Alexander Zverev has lingering issues with his back. Arthur Fils, the rising French star, pulled out of his opening match in Rome down 4-0 with a hip injury. Fils said on social media the other day that an MRI came back clear, but he missed around eight months last year with a stress fracture in his back. Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1, was already a heavy favorite to complete the career Grand Slam in Paris at the start of June. Musetti’s withdrawal appears to make his path to a French Open trophy lift even clearer. Sinner has been nothing short of dominant this spring. He has not lost a match since February. He has won four consecutive tournaments, all of them ATP Masters 1000s, the tier just below a Grand Slam. He has lost just two sets during what is now a 26-match winning streak, with more than half of those wins coming on clay. Clay was once considered Sinner’s weakest surface. But during the last six months he has increased the variety of his arsenal. Already one of the game’s top movers, he now has a potent drop shot, which has been lethal when he combines it with his overwhelming power. In the epic 2025 French Open final which he lost to Alcaraz, he still held three championship points. With Musetti out of the draw, and so many of the rest of the top players in the game lacking much proficiency on clay — or any recent history of success against Sinner — the men’s tournament appears increasingly like a one-horse race. Musetti said in a news conference at the Italian Open that he played out his last match, a 6-3, 6-1 defeat to Casper Ruud, because he was sick of retiring due to injury. At last year’s French Open, he took a set off Alcaraz, but the physical impact of staying with him proved too much and Musetti could not finish the match. Ruud, the world No. 25 but a two-time finalist in Paris, may be the most likely foe for Sinner if he ends up on the opposite half of the draw — if the calf injury that troubled him last month remains under control. The tournament starts May 24. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms