Lorenzo Musetti continued his fine season by thrilling the home crowd with a hard-fought victory over Alexander Zverev in the Italian Open quarter-finals.

The Italian battled past second seed Zverev, who succumbed to a 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 defeat to add further pain to a disappointing year so far.

Carlos Alcaraz awaits Musetti in the last four in Rome after the world number nine claimed yet another impressive top-10 scalp, his fourth of the year, on the clay courts of his home country.

Two-time Rome champion Zverev surged into an early 3-1 lead after breaking in Musetti's second service game, claiming his third chance at a break point.

Musetti did not appear too concerned by that initial setback, however, snatching his first break point to level at 4-4 before failing to hold his serve and falling 6-5 down.

Zverev then squandered four set points with the ball in hand from 40-0 up, allowing Musetti to send the opening set to a tie-break, which the Italian dominated.

A marathon of an opening set lasting over an hour came to a rapturous conclusion, and both players refused to budge by holding their serve all the way through to 4-4 in the next.

Musetti struck once again at the decisive moment, stunning Zverev with his only break-point chance of the second set, before edging over the line by taking his second match point in the next game.

Etching his name in the history books @Lorenzo1Musetti becomes the third Italian men’s singles semi-finalist this century at the Foro Italico!@InteBNLdItalia | #IBI25 pic.twitter.com/pUQx2z5bbB

— ATP Tour (@atptour) May 14, 2025

Data Debrief: Magic Musetti fires on home soil

Musetti is the fifth player to reach each of his first three ATP Masters 1000 semi-finals on clay, after Guillermo Coria, Gaston Gaudio, Dominic Thiem and Casper Ruud, since 2000.

Aged 23 years and 65 days, he is also the second-youngest Italian in the Open Era to reach the men's singles semi-finals at this tournament, only older than Paolo Bertolucci (21y 304d in 1973).

Musetti has now won 22 of his past 26 matches on clay after already becoming a finalist in Monte-Carlo and a semi-finalist in Madrid this year.

This year also marks Musetti's most top-10 wins of his career, beating the three achieved in both 2022 and 2024, having claimed his fourth scalp in seven such matches.