For such a charming and open chap, Lorenzo Musetti is a man of contradictions.

He says his favourite surface is clay but his favourite tournament is Wimbledon. He says his best quality is that he is a hard worker yet his worst is that he is lazy. Presumably his favourite foodstuff is chalk and his favourite sandwich filling is cheese.

He first bounded into the international spotlight three years ago when, as a mere stripling of 19, he reached the fourth round at Roland-Garros and faced Novak Djokovic.

Taking the first two sets on tie-breaks, he had the Court Philippe Chatrier not daring to breathe: could he do the unthinkable and win?

No, he couldn’t.

He had run himself into the ground and, winning just one more game, he retired at 0-4 in the fifth set. But Musetti was now officially ‘one to watch’.

Unfortunately, life does not always go according to the headline writers’ plans. The ‘one to watch’ did not kick on straight away; he did not become a permanent thorn in the side of the good and the great at the major championships.

He did, though, make steady progress up into the world’s top 20 and claimed a couple of big victories along the way. He even beat Djokovic – last year in Monte Carlo – although it is his only victory over the world No.2 in six meetings.

Now he is a very grown up 22 years of age. His life has changed dramatically in the past 12 months and through to his first Grand Slam quarter-final, his overwhelming emotion is relief: relief that his run here goes some way to repaying his family and team for all their hard work and support. He was in tears when he beat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard on Monday.

“Family always believe me, kept me, let’s say, always with a positive mindset on my future,” he said. “They almost never doubted my future, on what I was doing. They (are) always supporting me.

“Now all the sacrifices that we have done as a family are paying off. That’s why I was so emotional after my win on court today.”

His results have been a mixed bag this year but after falling at the first hurdle at six tournaments, he dropped down to Challenger level and got the hang of winning matches again (he reached two finals).

That bolstered his confidence going into Roland-Garros where he met Djokovic again. He still could not find a way to win but he did keep the defending champion on court until 3.07am as he stretched him to five sets.

Switching to the grass courts, he has been flying. Although not vastly experienced on the green stuff, his sliced, one-handed backhand, his volleying skills and his foot speed have taken him to the final of Queen’s Club, the semi-finals in Stuttgart and the last eight here.

But there is one other key ingredient to Musetti’s recent rise: fatherhood. His girlfriend, Veronica, presented him with a son – Ludovico – in March and life has never been the same since.

He raced home in between the Indian Wells and Miami events to be by Veronica’s side for the birth and then jumped back on a plane to get to Florida in time for his opening match. On no sleep and a lot of jet lag, he reached the fourth round.

Since then, he says, he feels calmer. His priorities have changed. He has someone else to think about and care for no matter what happens on court. Or, as he put it: “A smile from my son is a good help to decompress.”

Yet if you really want to understand Musetti, to discover what makes him tick, just look at his tattoos. You can always read a man by his ink.

He has three images indelibly marked on his skin. One depicts the heartbeat, the line of a heart rate monitor, and in the middle of the peaks and troughs is a tennis racket. Then there is an anchor with the word “family” beside it “because they’re always supporting me, like an anchor does,” he said.

And the last is a motto in Italian, a philosophy he shares with his coach, Simone Tartarini. Coach and pupil have been together for more than a decade and Musetti thinks of his mentor as a second father.

“Il meglio deve ancora venire,” the tattoo reads. Or “The best is yet to come.”

Tartarini believes it to be true; the crowd who watched him on No.2 Court a couple of days ago realised it was perfectly possible and Musetti is just living in the moment, revelling in the fact that his tat is telling his story.

As he said: “Today I can say it’s coming.”