Humble rise, proud name: Inside Ignacio Buse's tennis journey

  • Posted: Oct 24, 2025

It was a mild September day in Lima, and south of the city centre, Peru’s Davis Cup team faced underdog status against Portugal. In front of a vocal home crowd, Ignacio Buse delivered the clinching blow, defeating Nuno Borges to close the tie in the stadium that carries his family name — Estadio Hermanos Buse (Buse Brothers Stadium), honouring his grandfather Eduardo and twin brother Enrique, who both were tennis players.

Eduardo competed at the majors as early as 1942, when he played on the grass courts of West Side Tennis Club in New York for the US National Championships. Ignacio never met his grandfather, but his legacy shaped a tennis tradition in the Buse family.

Although the stadium court at Club Lawn Tennis de la Exposición bears the family name, Buse began his journey across town at Country Club de Villa. He started alongside his father, Hans, a tennis coach who moved to Miami in 2019 and has since worked at Royal Palm Tennis Club.

“I always remember the best moments with my dad,” Buse told ATPTour.com. “Before we started practice, we played mini tennis and that was such a battle for me. Sometimes I was confused with the situation, sometimes getting pissed. My dad just wanted to practice and I was so happy playing mini tennis against him.”

Buse, World No. 111, is Peru’s top-ranked player in the PIF ATP Rankings. He competes mostly on the ATP Challenger Tour, the level at which he has captured two titles this year. His goal for 2025 was to finish inside the Top 150 — a quest he is on pace to achieve with flying colours.

As a teen, Buse climbed inside the junior Top 10 before facing a pivotal decision in 2022 of playing college tennis or turning pro. After struggling to secure a visa to attend school in the United States, Buse decided to chase pro tennis, a difficult challenge coming from a country that has had five players crack the Top 100 in PIF ATP Rankings history (since 1973).

“It was like a dream, but it never seemed realistic. I always saw it really far,” Buse said of playing pro tennis. “Then I wanted to go to college and when I couldn’t go to college — basically there was a problem with the residence — there I said, ‘Okay, I will go professional’, when I was 18.”

Buse made his Challenger debut in 2022 as a teenager ranked outside the Top 1,400. In his second appearance — a home outing in Lima — then-No. 886 Buse met top seed Federico Coria, a former Top 50 player. Buse pushed the match to a decider and ended the night with newfound confidence despite the loss.

“I was starting to believe in myself that I could do it,” he reflected.

Now based in Barcelona, Spain, Buse considers his father his greatest mentor. Having made his maiden Grand Slam appearance at this year’s US Open, where he fell to sixth seed Ben Shelton, Buse has come a long way. He is doing it all while holding true to the biggest lesson his parents taught him.

“First of all, always be humble,” Buse said. “I learned it from my dad and mom also. I don’t think saying you’re humble means you are humble. You have to demonstrate with facts. It has to be natural.

“If you are known more in the world, that doesn’t mean you are above the others. That’s the most important thing. That’s why sometimes society is confused in those terms. I feel that we all have the same importance.”

Buse’s family extends this philosophy beyond tennis. His uncle, Gaston Acurio, is a world-renowned chef with restaurants worldwide and over one-million Instagram followers. Buse greatly admires Acurio and his values.

“He’s not my idol just because of how he cooks or whatever, but he always wants to help people,” Buse said. “He has a foundation in Peru for the people that want to be a chef who have no money. He helps him, forms them and then they work in a restaurant around the world.

“For me, what he does there is an example that he not only cares about the world, but also about humanity.”

With Christmas quickly approaching, Buse looks forward to a big family gathering and eating the delicious food that Acurio will make.

“It’s like an event,” Buse said. “He’s such an amazing chef. It’s always so delicious. He made all his recipes and a lot of his recipes came from his grandmother that I didn’t get to meet.”

Around the table with loved ones, Buse will be able to proudly reflect on his 2025 season.

“If you would have told me that today I would be at the ranking I am, I would tell you that I don’t believe you. I wanted to end in the Top 150, more or less,” Buse said. “It was the goal we set. I think the start of the year was not as we imagined, but we managed to keep improving, keep believing in the process.”

<img alt=”Ignacio Buse triumphs in Heilbronn – Bad Rappenau, Germany.” style=”width:100%” src=”/-/media/images/news/2025/06/09/13/35/buse-heilbronnch-2025.jpg” />
Ignacio Buse triumphs at the Heilbronn Challenger in June. Credit: Elias Hoh Media/NECKARCUP

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