Masters 1000 of Madrid: What tennis says our love for Lorenzo Musetti

What is beauty? We will not pretend to answer here in a few lines to a question that has animated philosk cafes since the dawn of time. But in the things of tennis as, no doubt, in many other fields, we can at least argue that there is in beauty a universal dimension, something that does not debate. The charm is subjective. Beauty is obvious. And if it is necessary to look for it, it is that it is not there. Lorenzo Musetti is a beautiful player, undoubtedly. In the sense that the beauty of his tennis is not discussed. It can be seen, almost unanimously.

The Italian, qualified Thursday evening for the semi-finals of the Masters 1000 in Madrid after a wealthy victory in front of a Diallo at the end of the roll (6-4, 6-3), is one of those who agree. And that is not the least of his assets, even if he has many others. Not everyone is a fan of Musetti, of course. But we have never heard anyone say: “I don’t like musetti tennis”. However, players of this caliber, there are not brewed with each generation. Before him, there was Richard Gasquet, which he reminds us so much. Grigor Dimitrov, no doubt. Roger Federer of course, the one who has best combined beauty with efficiency. And some rare elected officials before. Musetti is the last called from the Esthetes clan.

Are these players only aware of their luck, that of having been able to benefit from an additional popularity before even having started to win? More than popularity, we can even talk about love. Gasquet and Dimitrov have, with the public, a love rating that goes beyond their record, if it is eminently respectable. It is much superior, in any case, to many players who have done better. Players who won great chelems or played the Grand Slam finals. We will not quote them, by decency. But sailors Cilic, Milos Raonic or Thomas Johansson, to go back a little further, could recognize themselves.

Why this two weights, two measures? Because humans, viscerally, is always fascinated by beauty. And tennis has always had this appetite for the beauty of the gesture from which its audience has never departed, even if some of its champions have sometimes ruled out. It is not for nothing that Bill Tilden once compared tennis to an art, in the same way as dance. Perhaps by seeing Suzanne Lenglen, another immense esthete, practicing this sport like a ballerina, while at the same time (beautiful) era, René Lacoste – and God knows the influence he had in tennis culture – professed that “playing is not enough, it is still necessary to master his style.” All this is anchored in mentalities, for ages.

There remains a question that we have not decided. Why is Lorenzo Musetti tennis beautiful? What makes everyone fall into Patoison in front of their technical-gag arabesques, while many remain marble in the face of the perfectly oiled mechanics of his compatriot Jannik Sinner? At Sinner too, however, everything is clean, perfect, millimeter, with an absolutely edifying execution accuracy. But maybe too much, precisely. In beauty, there is also something not imperfect but at least fragile, crystalline, a work so pure that we barely dare to look at it, for fear of defiling it.

And Musetti, that’s a bit. The Sandro Botticelli of Tennis, this painter of the Renaissance famous for his paintings of exquisite finesse and of almost ethereal beauty, of which each brushstroke seemed guided by the concern of delicacy, a bit like its reverse slues. His equipment supplier was not mistaken by equipping him with a kind of white toga straight out of ancient Rome which would border on the ridiculous on almost everyone, except on him. His matches look at each other as we contemplate a painting, lingering more on the details than on the whole. He arms his service like a crossbow and his forehand as a glass blower, even if he may add extra interlacing, perhaps for the form.

And then, of course, there is this setback with one hand. We are still not sure of the definition of beautiful in tennis. But we see, all the same, that there is always a setback with a hand hanging out in history. A blow including aesthetics, beyond its rarity which certainly contributes to its beauty, perhaps comes from its incomparable gestural amplitude: it is the only blow which can end as far as possible towards the objective, while in the execution of a forehand or a reverse with both hands, the arm must more or less wrap around the shoulder, sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower, but whatever the same feeling of movement.

And if Musetti’s gestures is beautiful, it is because his body is too, surely. Observe. The head is straight, the haughty port, the joints well aligned. Everything is perfectly tidy, well orchestrated, up to the smallest plot of skin. Each movement is done in the right direction, giving off a grace which cannot be explained, without the slightest parasitic movement, without the slightest apparent effort. Even at the heart of the effort, nothing moves, not even a wick of hair. This perfect biomechanical ordering gives it total gestural fluidity. There is no technical limitation, therefore no tactical limitation. This is why beautiful players are never at work. They are creatives, capable of doing everything, sometimes even if it goes out on the way.

Because to see at work Musetti is also to accept to get lost, from time to time, in the mazes of your game, as you get lost in the streets of Rome, or Florence. From each corner of the street as from each stroke of the racket can spring an unexpected splendor. And sometimes nothing at all, from the rest. But at least we can be disturbed by a surprise with each step, when modern tennis, it often assimilates to an effective but cold, rectilinear architecture, so to speak a little brutalist. The gem chiseled in carrare marble in the face of urban planning forged in steel. However, beauty is that too: the surprise of the unknown that can spring everywhere, all the time.

Even if he has considerably muscled his game in recent months, Lorenzo Musetti has succeeded in this tour de force: to preserve the architectural splendors of his game in the face of the robotic requirements of modern tennis, while keeping on the court this hypersensitivity which is the prerogative of artists, this very human side which does not even seek to hide or its flaws, neither his emotions. The building is still far from being in reinforced concrete and can very well shatter this Friday evening in the semi-finals, facing the brute force of Jack Draper. But whatever happens, next week, it will be solidly installed in the top 10, and that is great news. Because as long as there are musetti, tennis will not die.