They may be close friends off the court, but on the Arthur Ashe Stadium Court, Pablo Carreno Busta gave no ground to Argentina’s Diego Schwartzmann as the two faced off in the US Open quarter-finals. Carreno Busta produced a near perfect display to defeat Schwartzmann 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
Carreno Busta had had on paper, an easy draw up to this quarter-final meeting. Carreno Busta had faced only qualifiers in the first four rounds of the tournament. Though wins over Evan King, Cameron Norrie, and Nicolas Mahut had appeared routine, Carreno Busta had to face-off with talented teenager Denis Shapovalov to reach the quarter-finals. Shapovalov had beaten Daniil Medvedev, 8th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Britain’s Kyle Edmund before Carreno Busta beat him in three straight tiebreaks.
Schwartzmann had had a terrific tournament in his own right as the 29th seed is more familiar with clay. The diminutive Argentine had dispatched former champion Marin Cilic in the second round, before taking down last year’s quarter-finalist Lucas Pouille in the fourth.
However, it was in the match with Pouille that another factor that would weigh on this meeting appeared; the spectre of injury. Schwartzmann had receieved a medical timeout treatment in his match with the Frenchman, and resorted to a similar tactic against Carreno Busta early in the third set.
Play up until that stage had been predictable, as two base-liners probed each other relentlessly for errors in a series of cross-court backhand exchanges. More often, it proved Schwartzmann who would break down in the rallies first, with Carreno Busta building the commanding two set lead.
Schwartzmann continued to battle gamely despite already being down two sets and a break, even crafting a break point opportunity for himself in an attempt to claw his way back. However, he was not able to summon the spirit of compatriot Juan Martin del Potro’s epic comeback against 6th seed Dominic Thiem last night. Carreno Busta eventually fended off the tough service hold for a 3-1 lead. Schwartzmann got to deuce again in Carreno Busta’s next service game, but after failing to break, appeared to lose belief and was broken again before Carreno Busta closed it out.
The win for Carreno Busta will see him move into the Top 10 for the first time in his career. Though seeded 12th, his ranking is No.19, with the high seeding a result of a number of high-profile withdrawals before the tournament began. Carreno Busta remains the highest seed left in the bottom half of the draw, and will take on the winner of the match between Sam Querrey and Kevin Anderson.
Schwartzmann will move back into the Top 30. He was not expected to be seeded, though he too benefited from the high number of withdrawals with a move to 29th seed.
