Carreno Busta Advances In Buenos Aires Battle

Fourth seed Pablo Carreno Busta moved into his first semi-final of 2017 on Friday at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires, outlasting fifth seed and fellow Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in a marathon match.

Little separated the players in the early stages, but Carreno Busta went on a four-game run down 2-3 to grab the opening set. Ramos-Vinolas fought back by grabbing the lone break of serve in the second set at 4-4. The fifth seed went up 3-1 in the deciding set, but Carreno Busta saved his best tennis for the end by winning five of the last six games to prevail in two hours and 11 minutes.

Carreno Busta improves his FedEx ATP Head2Head record against Ramos-Vinolas to 2-0, having prevailed against him in a third-set tie-breaker in February 2016 in Sao Paulo. He is making his fourth consecutive appearance in Buenos Aires, but had never won a match here until this year. Carreno Busta currently sits at a career-high No. 25 in the Emirates ATP Rankings.

Next up for him is Alexandr Dolgopolov, who advanced 7-5, 6-4 over Gerald Melzer. The Ukrainian is also through to his first ATP World Tour semi-final of the season. Dolgopolov caused the biggest upset so far this week in Buenos Aires by taking out second seed Pablo Cuevas in the second-round.