Roland Garros | Carreño imposes his great form to beat Bautista

Pablo Carreño is still sweet. The Gijon, semifinalist of the last US Open, imposed his great form to win his compatriot Roberto Bautista, who lacked energy and physique to face the deployment of his teammate in the Davis Cup, who beat him in four sets and 3h: 11 for 6-4, 6-3, 5-7 and 6-4. Carreño gets for the second time in the round of 16 of the tournament (he was a quarter-finalist in 2017).

The 84th match between Spaniards at Roland Garros in the Open Era (since 1968), 166th in Grand Slams, was as expected. Long rallies, speed, rhythm and strategy warfare. Carreño showed that his tennis moment after confinement is superior to that of Bautista, who has had to combine his work on the circuit with his recent fatherhood and is running a fair bit of gasoline. The loss for him is a setback in his intention to play next November in the ATP Finals. He is twelfth in the ranking, Rublev can escape ahead and there are several players who could surpass him if they advance in Paris, including Carreño himself who has already started to score points and is virtually 16th.

Pablo dominated most of the match, he was the first to break ahead in the first two sets, in the third he let himself eat ground and in the fourth he was able to ward off the ghosts of another comeback like the one Zverev did in New York when Bautista won the last four games of the match at 4-2. The Asturian played the card of aggressiveness and placed 65 winning shots, 11 of them from direct service. Thus, he cared little for adding 51 unforced errors.

Carreño will face the surprising German of the previous Daniel Altmaier (22 years and 186th in the world), who defeated the seed number 7, the Italian Matteo Berrettini, whom he also beat in three sets (6-2, 7-6 ( 5) and 6-4). Altmaier is the fourth Grand Slam rookie to reach the round of 16 since 2000, along with Hyung-Talk Lee (US Open 2000), David Goffin (Roland Garros 2012) and Juan Ignacio Londero (Roland Garros 2019). Jannik Sinner and Sebastian Korda also made rookies this year, and this is the first time that three have made it into the round of 16 at Roland Garros since four (Dreekman, Gaudenzi, Rafter and Tillstrom) did so in 1994. He also forms, together with Korda, the first group of players to enter the fourth round of the tournament since the previous one since Jens Knippschild and Marat Safin in 1998. The Teuton had previously eliminated Feliciano López and his compatriot Jan-Lennard Struff.

“I am at a very high level of play”

“Bautista is a very tough player and it was not easy to beat him. The level of play that I am having is very high. I had to be aggressive and not be dominated. In the third set I stopped doing it and paid for it. In the fourth, when I was 4-2 down, I was very well upside down, “explained Carreño, who qualified the words he said when he won his first-round match:” When I said that I didn't see myself as inferior to anyone, I didn't mean that I was superior to all, but if I play aggressive and maintain a high pace I can win. Zverev crossed my mind because it was a tough moment. ” The man from Gijón spoke about his next rival: “Altmaier is my turn, in the end I don't play against Berrettini. If you have reached this fourth round with all the games you have, then you will be very confident. I will have to watch games against him. If I win, I hope I win, because I'll think about the next one. A priori, it is better to play against a low ranked rival, but to beat him I have to make a difference on the court. My coach will have to work and help me prepare the tactic for that match. Pablo admits that he thought about what happened in the semifinals of the US Open: “I had two sets to zero over Zverev and then he almost won the US Open final. I have to be confident that I can be there again and compete in those rounds. “

Bautista, for his part, made no excuses for the defeat: “There are no physical excuses. Pablo has deserved to win, he has remained better in the difficult moments of the game and when I have had a break up I have not known how to hold myself and maintain concentration. Few things make a difference. My elbow has bothered me a little and the discomfort is accentuated by the cold ”. The Castellón did not reveal what steps he will take from now on in the circuit: “I am with the very recent game, it is not time to think about that, but to go home, rest, be with my wife and my son, and rethink things. Let's see how the calendar is and what can be played and we'll see ”.

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