MELBOURNE, Australia -- Lorenzo Musetti reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open for the first time with a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 win over No. 9 Taylor Fritz.
The fifth-seeded Musetti has had a disrupted run, with one of his coaches and a physio having to return to Italy for personal reasons. He also had to leave his family after the birth in November of his second son.
"I feel more mature on the court. I'm playing better for that, and for them," he said. "I didn't get much sleep in the offseason. But we found a way to work and to practice really well on and off the court.
"Now it's more than 20 days that I'm alone and it's not easy, but I feel their presence also here."
Meanwhile, Fritz, the 2024 US Open runner-up, revealed in a postmatch news conference that he had arrived in Melbourne in two minds about his fitness, and had nearly withdrawn because of knee and abdominal issues.
"I was fully ready to shut it down for a couple of months to get it better," Fritz said, adding that he'd told his team: "If it stays how it is, we are just going to have to stop. I can't play through this."
He said his physio told him there was a "pretty solid chance" he could rehabilitate the injuries while continuing to play. However, after feeling discomfort in his third-round win over 40-year-old Stan Wawrinka, a much sterner test against Musetti proved too much.
Despite feeling "very good" in his warmup, albeit with his torso heavily strapped to help his obliques, Fritz said painkillers failed to bridge the gap.
"I thought they would maybe kick in. It didn't do anything," he said. "A lot of my mistakes came from me pulling up, not feeling like I'm loading my knee hard enough."
Fritz said he didn't really consider retiring from the match and that he's hoping he can play the tournament in Dallas but will have to wait and see how his body recovers.
Musetti's next mission is against a rested Novak Djokovic. The 24-time major winner had been scheduled to be the feature night match at Rod Laver Arena on Monday but had a walkover into the quarterfinals after his opponent Jakub Mensik withdrew from their scheduled fourth-round match because of an abdominal injury.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
