Carreno Busta Claims First ATP Title in Winston-Salem
Steen Kirby, Tennis Atlantic
Pablo Carreno Busta has been rapidly improving his hard court game, and it paid off on Saturday in Winston-Salem, as the Spaniard won his first ever ATP title 6-7 7-6 6-4 over his countryman Roberto Bautista Agut in a nip and tuck match. The first set featured no breaks of serve, as RBA took the first set tiebreak, as was expected. However, the favored #2 seed couldn’t consolidate a set and a break lead, and ended up playing a miserable second set tiebreak that sent the match into a third set. RBA had experienced severe lapses in form during his matches in Winston-Salem, and the third set of the final was no different, as a lone break allowed PCB to grab a lead that had he never was threatened to give up, the top 50 Spaniard closing out the match against the top 20 Spaniard at love.
PCB is 10-3 since Wimbledon in ATP tournaments and has been playing some great tennis. In Winston-Salem he beat J.L. Struff, Pablo Cuevas, Andrey Kuznetsov and John Millman without dropping a set. RBA defeated Aljaz Bedene and Marcos Baghdatis in three sets, then he got an easier match against Rendy Lu before winning a third set over Viktor Troicki, in which he was up a set and 5-1, and ended up needing a third set to get the victory.
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, another Spaniard, and Henri Kontinen beat Andre Begemann and Leander Paes for the doubles title in a close match.
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