Pablo Carreño (31 years old, 15 in the world) throws the racket, raising his arms to the sky and smiling. The last point of his match against Alexander Bublik (25 years old, 47 in the world) is a good summary of all of the above: running, defense, recovery, running again, defending, another blow and another until the Kazakh stays in red. The Spaniard qualifies for the third round after three hours just as a challenge.
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The Asturian maintains the tennis and the quality of his shots that led him to win the Masters 1.000 in Canada a few weeks ago. Aware that in this match it will be difficult for you to dress the Kazakh on many occasions and, although he dressed won all three, he always had to fight it to the maximum. In Moscow 2016 he was 6-4, 2-6 and 7-6 (1); in China 2019 it was 6-7 (5), 6-4 and 7-6 (3), and in Monte Carlo 2022 it was 4-6, 7-6 (3) and 4-3 with a strange withdrawal from Bublik, who decided not to continue playing when he lost serve with a double fault.
Carreño once again faced the challenge of Bublik's direct play, who has one of his best weapons on serve -he added 28 aces-. And, in addition, he succumbed to the nerves of the beginning to give away a break that, in the end, cost him the first set.
But Carreño is a fighter. The dynamics of the last few weeks and the persistence of this style of play posed difficulties in the following sets. Forceful from the bottom and minimizing the risks so that it was the Kazakh who took them. He played Bublik to the limit, scoring 63 winners, 33 for the Spaniard, and 77 missing errors.
He is already in the third round, where he will face the Australian Alex de Miñaur. They have only met once, at Roland Garros 2019. The Spanish won the match, by a resounding 6-3, 6-1 and 6-1.
