Pablo Carreno Busta has withstood the heat and a serving barrage of 40 aces from Gilles Muller, overcoming the No.23 seed 7-6(4) 4-6 7-5 7-5 in three hours and 18 minutes in a polished display at Margaret Court Arena on a sweltering Friday afternoon.
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“It was really tough conditions to play today but I make my best,” Carreno Busta said. “I feel very comfortable on court now, I’m growing up and I’m very happy for this.”
Asked what he would do immediately after getting inside, he responded by saying “anything but the Australian sun.”
Coming into the match having beaten the man from Luxembourg in their last two outings – including, most recently, last year’s Estoril final on clay – history showed that the player which won the tiebreaker went on to victory. That fact held firm as the Spaniard clinched the first set in exactly that fashion after nearly an hour of play that had very little to separate them.
Muller must have taken some solace in that their only hardcourt meeting came here at Melbourne Park in 2015, a match in which he was victorious in straight sets. However, Carreno Busta, 26, has come of age in the intervening years, cracking the top 10 and reaching the semifinals at the US Open last year, along the way proving he is no slouch away from clay, either.
With Muller himself a quarterfinalist at last year’s Wimbledon, this match was always going to be tough to call and, despite remaining a touch tentative in longer rallies and not quite putting it all together, Muller’s serving was well and truly keeping him in the hunt. In the second set he lifted, breaking Carreno Busta at the first asking and holding sway to level proceedings.
The final two sets produced some outstanding tennis from both players, but as each reached a critical stage, Carreno Busta was the steadier, willing himself over the line to create and take advantage of the slightest of openings, cracking the big left-hander’s serve at 6-5 to snatch each set in a carbon-copy display.
Carreno Busta has now reached the round of 16 at the Australian Open for the first time in his career, and will play the winner of sixth seed Marin Cilic and Brisbane runner-up Ryan Harrison of the United States.