Challenger Ortisei - Will indoor inexperience cause issues for Italian Musetti?

Nearing Year-End

Two more weeks until the tennis season concludes on the ATP and Challenger tours. After the Next Generation had their year-end finals last week, it's the big boys' turn in London now. Besides the big media event, there are five Challenger events to be played this week, two in the USA (Houston and Champaign), one in Pune, India and two in Europe (Helsinki, Finland and Ortisei, Italy).

Today, I will preview the match between 17-year-old Italian Lorenzo Musetti and 24-year-old German Benjamin Hassan. The two face each other in Ortisei, Italy. Last month, I previewed another match of Hassan's against Musetti's compatriot Arnaboldi, in which Hassan was able to take advantage of the fast indoor courts and Arnaboldi's injury issues as the Italian had to retire down 2-6 0-1.

Indoor Inexperience

The surface always is a big factor when it comes to tennis matchups. The event in Ortisei is played on indoor hard courts again, a surface Hassan is used to play every year. One fourth of his matches have been played indoors over the course of his career, a relatively high rate. He's 36-22, winning 62% of them.

His opponent today, Lorenzo Musetti, is still inexperienced at 17 years of age. Not only is his game still raw, but he was almost exclusively playing on clay courts so far on the ITF tour. In juniors, the Italian had a lot of success on outdoor hard courts, reaching the US Open final in 2018 and winning the Australian Open this year. On the pro tour, he only played five matches outside of clay though.

Apart from one outdoor hard court match in Recanati, which he lost 2-6 0-6 to Yosuke Watanuki, he solely played on clay courts since March. After winning the Australian Open junior competition, he also had a short indoor stretch in February. Playing in Barnstaple, Bergamo and Trento, he only won one of his four matches, a tight three-setter against Felix Corwin. After that, he lost to Sadio Doumbia, Roman Safiullin and Julian Lenz. It's been his only four matches indoors except for some appearances on the Italian Team Championship. So he is 0-1 on outdoor and 1-3 on indoor hard courts on the pro circuit.

I'm not even questioning the Italian's talent. He has been the junior world #1 for quite some time. His style is to play aggressive from the baseline. He possesses a nice one-handed backhand, which he often tries to run around to hit a forehand inside out though. That being said, his game is designed for clay courts. Things like running around the backhand are just not possible regularly on fast indoor hard courts. Having to change his gameplan completely might cause some problems for the 17-year-old.

Underestimated Underdog

Considering Hassan's solid indoor record and the fact that he's much more used to the surface, I don't see why he's the underdog in this matchup, even though Musetti is a top prospect. At later stages of his career, I can definitely see Musetti having success on faster courts as well, but for now, he's only used to play on clay.

The courts in Ortisei have always been fast and I don't think a switch from slow clay courts to fast indoor courts is easy to manage for someone that has only played four pro matches on the surface. I have this match lined evenly and will therefore have a bet on the German at 2.35 odds.