Musetti uses his phone during the match to evade a doping problem

Diego Jiménez Rubio - 24 Oct 2026 | 09:05
Lorenzo Musetti ATP ATP Lyon 2026 antidoping

The Italian was a major protagonist of the day as he was forced to do something never seen before in the history of tennis.

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Lorenzo Musetti, doping problem in Lyon. Photo: gettyimages

Lorenzo Musetti starred in a surreal yet epic night at the ATP 250 Lyon 2026, a tournament where he secured a spot in the semifinals after an astonishing battle against Luca Van Assche, which was resolved in 3 hours and 33 minutes and ended past 1:00 AM. What no one expected was that the Italian would have to avoid an issue with anti-doping while on court.

When you think you have seen it all on a tennis court, this sport surprises you again. Very few people in the world were likely paying attention to what was happening in the quarterfinal match of the ATP 250 Lyon 2026 between Lorenzo Musetti and Luca Van Assche, but the Italian tennis player was aware that there might be an agent from the anti-doping agency who could cause him problems. How is that possible?

It is well known that tennis players are subject to exhaustive control by the anti-doping authorities, having to report every day in their professional lives where they are and establishing a time frame in which they can be found at that location for an anti-doping check. 

Musetti had to ask ATP Supervisor for permission to use his mobile phone

Everything indicates that Lorenzo Musetti had never imagined, not even in his worst nightmares, that he would be competing past midnight and had established in the relevant app that they could find him at the hotel where he was staying during the Lyon tournament starting at 1:00 AM. This is why, during a rally in the third set, the player from Carrara turned to the chair umpire and the ATP supervisor with words that left everyone stunned.

"I need to use my mobile phone because I have my anti-doping alarm set for 1:00 AM." To everyone's astonishment, the Italian was able to change it, and minutes later, he finished his match against Van Assche with a score of 7-6 (5) 6-7 (7) 6-4, in an epic battle supported by the extreme slowness of the court, which forced both players to work for every point due to the difficulty of hitting winning shots.

Anti-doping rules are very strict, and Musetti preferred to be cautious

It is important to remember that if a player is not in the location provided during the time slots they specify, they receive a warning, and if three warnings accumulate, the penalty is years without playing, as happened recently to Mikael Ymer. In this case, it would have been easy for the Italian to justify where he was, but the rigidity and demands of the anti-doping program led Musetti to prefer to take preventive measures.

Possibly, the effort made is a price too high for Lorenzo Musetti and his aspirations to reach the final of the ATP 250 Lyon 2026, but the Italian player needed to reconnect with a good version of himself and find some turning point that would propel his career. He will face Flavio Cobolli this Saturday, assuming he has made history with his unusual way of winning in the quarterfinals.

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Musetti usa el móvil en mitad de su partido para eludir un problema con el antidoping