It lasted maybe two seconds. Matteo Berrettini had just won his first-round match in Vienna, a journalist asked him about his “good friend” Lorenzo Musetti winning Lyon the day before, and he paused. Then: “Is this live?”
Then he answered properly. Musetti had worked really hard to win again, he said, and he deserved it.
You could watch him work out, in real time, that whatever he said next would be clipped, translated, captioned and argued over by strangers before he’d had his shower.
The question I keep getting
Friends who don’t follow tennis, who couldn’t pick Musetti out of a line-up, have started asking me about him. They don’t want to hear about Lyon or the backhand. They want the gossip.
Part of me is glad anyone is talking about tennis at all. But I’d rather they found Musetti through that backhand down the line than through a rumour, and I suspect he would too.
This is what I can actually tell them, and it’s a lot less than the headlines suggest.
What’s actually known
As of 4 November 2026:
- Musetti won the Lyon Open on 25 October, beating Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4 (ATP Tour). It was his first title since Naples in 2022, and it ended a run of seven straight lost finals. He saved four match points against Flavio Cobolli in the semi to get there.
- Berrettini and his former partner split in June, after about a year together (blue News).
- Berrettini no longer follows Musetti on Instagram. Musetti still follows him (blue News, Tennis365).
- Musetti is in Italy’s squad for the Davis Cup Finals in Bologna this month. Berrettini isn’t, for now: captain Filippo Volandri can make up to three changes before 23 November and has named him as still under consideration (Last Word on Sports). Volandri reportedly pointed to rankings (Fanpage, via blue News), and Musetti sits more than 20 places above him.
- Neither player has commented on the rumour.
Anything beyond that list is someone’s guess.
What’s being said
This part is hearsay. Italian celebrity media have claimed since the summer that Musetti and Berrettini’s former partner were involved. That’s as much detail as I’m willing to repeat, because it’s as much as anyone has shown.
She has denied it, publicly and with some feeling. “You should wash your mouths out before you speak,” she wrote on Instagram. The quote is translated from Italian, and the exact wording varies by outlet.
No one has produced evidence. Neither player has confirmed a rift. And there’s no evidence linking the rumour to the Davis Cup decision, as both blue News and Last Word on Sports point out.
Brad Gilbert, never short of a line, shrugged on The Big T podcast. “These kind of things have happened forever in men’s tennis,” he said. History is on his side, but that doesn’t make it anyone’s business but theirs.
Two people, both doing their jobs
Start with Berrettini. He’s spent years dragging his body back onto the court. He won every match he played in Italy’s 2024 Davis Cup run, and he won again in last year’s final against Spain. If he misses out on Bologna, it’ll sting, whatever the reason. And when he was handed the chance to say something sharp on camera, he said Musetti deserved it, which he didn’t have to do.
Then there’s Musetti. He’s just ended a four-year wait for a title, the kind of drought that gets inside a player’s head, with a week of tennis he’ll remember for the rest of his life. And instead of the backhand, the conversation is about this. He hasn’t commented on the rumour, and I don’t read anything into that. He’s 24, he has two small children, and he’s entitled to decide his private life isn’t content.
The people who didn’t sign up for this
People say players are used to this, that they chose the spotlight, and maybe they did. The people around them didn’t.
Musetti’s partner now gets to read strangers’ theories about her own family. Berrettini’s former partner isn’t the athlete here, and she has still had to defend herself in the comment sections. Their parents have to scroll past it. Friends in both camps have to work out what they’re allowed to say, and a Davis Cup dressing room needs to be a team in a few weeks.
There are also two kids who are far too young to read any of this. One day they’ll type their dad’s name into a search bar.
I think about that a lot more than I think about who unfollowed whom.
My part in it
I’m not an innocent bystander here. Every click on a “drama explained” headline is a vote for more of them, and writing this post puts me in the middle of it, so I’m not pointing fingers from a clean place.
What I can do is choose what I pass on. “Did you see Musetti saved four match points against Cobolli?” is a much better conversation than “did you hear about Musetti?”
Back to the tennis
If someone asks me about the gossip this week, I’m sending them the Lyon final instead. Watch Musetti take the backhand early, open the court with that ridiculous wrist, and not face a single break point all match. Then watch Berrettini’s Vienna answer, where he still says Musetti deserved it.
If that’s how a few of my friends find the sport, I’ll take it. And if you play, take that into your next hit: go for the backhand down the line at least once, even if it’s not on.