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ATP Future Stars Making Strides: Pablo Carreno-Busta

Dec 17th 2013

This series will focus on several up-and-coming men who could begin to make a name for themselves on the ATP World Tour. The final player featured is Spaniard Pablo Carreno-Busta.

Pablo Carreno-Busta

The difference between Carreno-Busta and everyone else featured in this series is that the average tennis fan has probably seen him play. After qualifying for the main draw at Roland Garros, Carreno-Busta faced Roger Federer in the first round. And while Carreno-Busta showed promise and talent, he was clearly outclassed by the Swiss veteran.

Carreno-Busta was a consistent top-300 player a few years ago, holding his own on the Challenger tour. Unfortunately, he missed six months in 2012 due to injury, and it was unclear how well he would make his return.

Starting in January of this year, though, the return was obvious—and instantaneous.  With his ranking outside the top 600 to start the year, Carreno-Busta reached the final of a very competitive Futures tournament in Turkey, where he lost to Ilija Bozoljac. Then, though, Carreno-Busta proceeded to win seven straight Futures tournaments. He carried that winning streak into the ATP 250 event in Casablanca, where he successfully qualified and upset Pablo Andujar in the first round. When he finally lost to Kevin Anderson in the second round, his winning streak had reached 39 matches—in under 75 days. All in all, Carreno-Busta played 59 matches in the first 4 months of the 2013 season, with a staggering record of 54-5.

His success was not limited to Futures tournaments, though. He qualified for the ATP 250 event in Oeiras (formerly Estoril) and reached the semifinals, losing to eventual champion Stanislas Wawrinka in three sets. And Carreno-Busta’s success did not end after the first few months of the season. He won a Challenger in Morocco in June, and followed that up with his second double-digit win streak of the season—this time winning 17 straight Challenger matches (including three titles) from August through October.

This success did not go entirely unnoticed. Carreno-Busta won the ATP award for Most Improved Player in 2013 and was even featured in Forbes Magazine for his incredible success. He showed a level of consistency that most players, on any level of the Tour, would love to have. Carreno-Busta played an incredible 110 matches in under 50 weeks with a spectacular record of 92-18. The difference in talent level between the Challenger Tour and the ATP Tour means that he will not reel off ATP winning streaks like those that he pulled off at the Challenger level. With that level of consistency, however, Carreno-Busta could go deep in plenty of tournaments this coming season.

Like all other players looking to move up on the Tour, the start of the year offers a valuable opportunity to earn points and prize money, and pick up sponsors. Carreno-Busta has earned direct entry into a major for the first time in his career at the 2014 Australian Open. He also will play in Chennai and Brisbane in the weeks leading up to Melbourne.

While playing consecutive weeks before a major is rarely advisable, Carreno-Busta showed us this past year that fatigue does not seem to catch up to him.