Musetti vs Van Assche: the slayer of the world No. 1, and a games line that resists

Lorenzo Musetti has just brought down A. Zverev in the German’s first match as world No. 1. Luca van Assche had seen off the 15th seed L. Tien after saving nine break points out of ten. On Thursday the two winners cross paths in the Paris Masters last sixteen, under the roof of the Plenitude Arena; Thursday’s order of play was still unpublished on Wednesday evening, so the court and the time remain to be confirmed.

The head-to-head is level and recent: Musetti won their Lyon quarter-final less than two weeks ago, in three sets; Van Assche took their first meeting at the 2024 Australian Open, in a fifth set. At 22, the Frenchman is playing the first Masters 1000 last sixteen of his career, at home, and he wants to take his revenge. They know what is coming.

Musetti’s serve dictates, Van Assche clings on

Across their last ten matches Musetti has held 87.3% of his service games, Van Assche 76.9%. Indoors, ten points of difference behind the first serve is the whole match: the Italian reels off quiet service games, the Frenchman lives under tension. He held it on Wednesday, though: ten break points to save against Tien, one conceded. Ten days earlier in Vienna the same Tien had beaten him 6-3 6-1; on Wednesday in Paris he returned the favour, in front of a crowd that has carried him since his first ever win at this tournament.

A Musetti season written in fits and starts

The Italian’s season has come in episodes: a thigh during the clay and grass swings, a broken finger in late September, and still a Lyon title at the end of October. The injury is declared inactive as of this week. About his one-handed backhand he says you have to be “more prepared physically” to keep it: count his matches, seven in two weeks from the Lyon title to here. Van Assche has played five over the same stretch. Both men come off the same Wednesday, but not with the same spending: an hour forty for the Italian against Zverev, two hours and three minutes for the Frenchman against Tien. Nothing to report on the physical side for either of them.

Their last three matches

At 1.35, the market has watched the same match I have

The night before the match, Musetti was priced at 1.35 with Unibet, Van Assche at 3.40 with Bet365: prices set at the opening and barely moved since. At 1.35 the market gives the Italian just under three wins in four; that is my own figure, to the decimal.

The games line that tempted me

Over 22.5 games at 2.02 with Unibet: that is the line I worked on. Musetti plays long, 26.1 games per match on average across his last ten; Van Assche 24.6, and he does not let go of the sets he holds. I like the idea of a drawn-out match. But to make money at 2.02 you need to believe in it at better than one chance in two, and once my reading is crossed with the market’s, not enough is left. Musetti at 1.35, nothing to take; Van Assche at 3.40, the serving gap on this surface is too clear for me to dress it up.

With no net value, the stake our method calculates falls to zero: no bet. This last sixteen will not reach the public record; I will watch it to see whether Musetti’s one-handed backhand lasts the distance, he who says himself what it costs him.