Dane Sweeny Upsets Lorenzo Musetti at US Open

Dane Sweeny walked off court in New York with his head spinning and his life changed.

The 25-year-old from Penrith, ranked No.123 in the world and once unsure if tennis was worth the fight, has just produced the biggest win of his career, bundling 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti out of the US Open and surging into the third round.

It is a breakthrough that comes with both validation and a windfall. Sweeny has now guaranteed himself at least $402,000 for his run in New York – more than doubling his earnings for the entire year and pushing his career prize money past the $1 million mark. For a player who briefly walked away from the sport because the results simply wouldn’t come, the turnaround is stark.

“Tennis can change at the flip of a coin, you’ve just got to keep persevering, and that’s what I did,” he said, trying to process it all in his on-court interview. “I wasn’t getting results for a long while, but the law of probability, I knew it was going to swing in my favour if I just kept going, and I did. Now I’m here.

“Best decision I ever made to come back after that two months away.”

On Wednesday in New York, that persistence finally cashed in.

Musetti, the elegant Italian shotmaker, was hampered during the match, but Sweeny still had to hold his nerve and his level on one of the sport’s biggest stages. He did both. Point after point, he refused to blink, riding the energy of the crowd and backing his game in the pressure moments.

When the final point landed, the reaction said everything. Sweeny slumped in disbelief, then rose to salute a crowd that had roared him home. The underdog had not just upset a seed; he had ripped open the next chapter of his career.

“I don’t know, I’m so grateful to be able to compete in grand slams, I put a lot of work in,” he told the fans, voice catching between adrenaline and emotion. “Tennis [is] such a rollercoaster, I’m so incredibly grateful to play in front of this crowd, and to soak up the win... it’s awesome.”

The roar in response told its own story. An Aussie battler, once on the brink of giving it all away, now a US Open giant-killer with a third-round ticket in his pocket and the tennis world’s attention on what comes next.