Hong Kong
\n Musetti, chasing first title since 2022, meets Rublev in Hong Kong SF showdown<\/p>\n
Rublev is the only former champion remaining in the draw<\/p>\n
January 09, 2026<\/p>\n
Mike Frey \/ HKCTA<\/p>\n
Lorenzo Musetti is chasing his first ATP Tour title since 2022.
\n By Jerome Coombe<\/p>\n
Is Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> poised to finally end his near four-year wait for an ATP Tour title at this week\u2019s Bank of China Hong Kong Tennis Open<\/a>?<\/p>\n The top-seeded Italian took another assured step forward on Friday, brushing aside home favourite Coleman Wong<\/a> 6-4, 6-4 to book his place in the semi-finals. Musetti, who has not lifted an ATP Tour title since he won two in 2022, can now look forward to a meeting with former Hong Kong champion Andrey Rublev<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I had to be really, really solid from the beginning,\u201d said Musetti, who improved to 2-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Wong. \u201cIt was a really close match, but I stayed really focused until the end. So I\u2019m really happy and proud to start 2026 well.\u201d<\/p>\n Rublev hit 22 winners and saved the only break point he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats, in his 6-3, 6-4 clinic against Nuno Borges<\/a>. The third-seeded Rublev won his only previous meeting with Musetti in Dubai in 2020, but the Italian is a considerably improved player since then.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy to be back in the semi-finals here in Hong Kong,\u201d said 2024 champion Rublev. \u201cLorenzo is playing unbelievable the last couple of years, he\u2019s getting better and better. When I played him the first time, he was super young, so it doesn\u2019t really count. I need to be really ready if I want to have a chance for a good fight.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as reaching a career-high No. 6 in the PIF ATP Rankings in 2025, Musetti also reached three finals. He let slip two championship points against Alejandro Tabilo<\/a> in Chengdu and later fell to Novak Djokovic<\/a> in a gruelling three-hour Athens final.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Musetti, chasing first title since 2022, meets Rublev in Hong Kong SF showdown Rublev is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-398216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}