@SportsHorn
There have been several storylines for the wrong reasons at the French Open this year but on Sunday on Court 1, the “Bullring” as it’s called, there was a storyline for all the right reasons.
In one of the most entertaining matches of the French Open so far, Pablo Carreno Busta, on his seventh match point, upset the No. 5 seed Milos Raonic 4-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 in 4 hours and 17 minutes.
Carreno Busta had never been past the second round at Roland-Garros and had never defeated a Top 10 opponent before but you wouldn’t have known it the way he played against one of the games big hitters. The big difference in the match was the Spaniard playing more consistently than his opponent. Despite a phenomenal 92 winners from the Canadian, he also had trouble keeping the ball in play making an astounding 84 unforced errors. Carreno Busta, on the other hand, had exactly half the number of winners as his opponent but made just 28 mistakes. He also served slightly better than Raonic on the day. Less aces, 25 to 10, but a better first and second serve percentage. There were 35 break point attempts combined in the match. Raonic broke six times, Carreno Busta doing so seven times.
Raonic, who prefers the hard courts and the grass to the red dirt, at times seemed baffled by the prowess of the clay court specialist. Carreno Busta did a nice job mixing in some drop shots throughout the match at key times as well as moving him around the baseline when he could. Raonic did get to the net 61 times and won 67 percent of his points there.
“I just wasn’t very efficient, especially through the first three sets,” said Raonic who is still searching for his first career Grand Slam title. “I had a lot of times where I’m controlling the point and short forehands that I wasn’t very efficient with and just let him stick around in those moments and then he started to believe a lot and he was the better player there towards the end. I hung on as much as I could, but definitely lacked some efficiency from the — at least definitely from the aggressive side of my game.”
Raonic was up a break 3-1 in the deciding set and appeared to have Carreno Busta rattled after he barked at the umpire for what he thought were two questionable calls. But the 20th seed at this years tournament fought back and broke in the next game with help from three forehand errors from the Canadian. Carreno Busta also broke again to go up 5-4 but was unable to close out the set. Raonic fought off three match points hitting a forehand winner to even things up again.
Now 6-6 and without a final set tiebreak available to him, Raonic appeared slightly fatigued. He made two more forehand mistakes along with a lazy drop shot attempt and was broken at Love. After three more match points were thwarted and some gutsy shot making from both players, it was Carreno Busta who was finally able to secure the win.
An impressive victory for the 25 year old but with the win, comes a price. His next opponent in the quarterfinals is Rafael Nadal a man who has lost just six games in his last two matches, 20 games overall in the tournament. Carreno Busta dropped 30 games alone in his win on Sunday.
