Who is Pablo Carreno-Busta?

Thirty-nine wins later, it’s time to start paying attention. It’s time to recognize Pablo Carreno-Busta.

Um, who?

You read that right: Pablo Carreno-Busta…a 21-year-old Spaniard who’s been hiding in Futures tournaments. And by Futures tournaments I mean the most Futuristic of Futures tournaments. You know, the kind that awards a whopping 18 ATP ranking points for winning a title. Perhaps that is why PCB is still ranked 293rd in the world despite having won seven such titles in succession.

Um, what?

Yep, seven in a row. For those counting, that’s 35 straight match victories. Add three more over the weekend in Casablanca qualifying plus an upset of Pablo Andujar in the first round of the main draw on Tuesday and the guy is one away from 40. No matter that his best win in the stretch has come over 169th-ranked (at the time of the match) Arnau Brugues-Davi. Heck, during two of his forays to Futures titles he did not face a single opponent whose ranking the ATP website bothered to list. But who cares! Forty is forty.

Of course, PCB has faced some decent competition during his career. In the only tournament he failed to win this season (his first), he beat 2012 French Open boys champion Kimmer Coppejans (just two years younger than PCB) in the semis before losing to Ilija Bozoljac in the final. Yes, PCB’s only blemish on a 43-1 record this year is at the hands of none other than Serbia’s Davis Cup doubles hero.

Before missing much of 2012 with a back injury, PCB reached a career-high ranking of No. 133 during his 2011 campaign. That year, he scored wins over Paolo Lorenzi and Roberto Bautista Agut at the Alessandria Challenger (which he won) and over Benoit Paire and Andreas Beck en route to the Como Challenger title. He also had victories over Evgeny Korolev and Malek Jaziri to go along with a respectable three-set loss to Paire in the first round of the Barcelona main draw.

Search for Pablo Carreno-Busta on YouTube and you will find all of two videos: vs. Bautista Agut in the Alessandria final and vs. Paire in Barcelona.

PCB making a GRAND entrance in Alessandria, full of pomp and circumstance:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=390VqyILhsM]

PCB vs. Paire in Barcelona:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z9EW8YKeLg]

Contrary to what those two videos and his current performance in Casablanca suggest, PCB is not simply a clay-court specialist. Five of his seven titles this season have come on the slow stuff, but he he says his favorite surface is hard. It’s still early, but the jury has not yet ruled otherwise. PCB finished runner-up to Bozoljac on hard, won his next event on hard, and his most recent triumph came on carpet. His 2011 win over Jaziri came on a hard court and he captured one hard-court Futures title in 2010 while adding a runner-up finish on the same surface (lost to Jaziri in the final).

PCB has a long way to go reach Bjorn Borg’s 49 straight victories (not that this streak even counts since it has come in Futures rather than at the ATP level) and he has an even longer way to go–431 wins, to be exact–to match wheelchair legend Esther Vergeer’s record of 470 (here is some fun info on streaks). Heck, PCB even has a lot of work to do just to reach 40, because up next for him on Thursday in the Casablanca second round is second-seeded and 29th-ranked Kevin Anderson.

Wins over people like Roberto Carballes Baena, Oriol Roca Batalla, Jordi Samper-Montana, Pol Toledo Bague, Jose Checa-Calvoare, Mohamed Haythem Abid, and Zhe Li are all well and good. A win over Kevin Bleepin’ Anderson would be something else altogether.

Stay tuned….

May 24, 2013 update

Six weeks later, PCB’s meteoric rise has continued–127 more spots up the rankings, to be exact. He lost three of his next four matches after the initial posting of this blog (including to Anderson in the Casablanca second round) but picked up the pace again in Oeiras. PCB qualified for the main draw (what’s new!?) then upset Julien Benneteau, David Goffin, and Fabio Fognini before succumbing to eventual champion Stanislas Wawrinka in a three-set semifinal. Last week he qualified in Bordeaux (yes, he still has to qualify for Challengers) and reached the second round before losing to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4 in the third.

On a much bigger qualifying stage earlier this week at Roland Garros, PCB was up to his similar tricks. He disposed of Dominik Meffert, Joao Souza, and Vincent Millot–losing only one set to Souza in the process. His reward is a first-ever foray into the main draw of a Grand Slam (he had never previously appeared at a major even in qualifying).

More specifically, PCB’s reward is a date with none other than 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer. Yes, as the draw gods would have it, arguably the best of the 16 qualifiers got the worst of their 16 draws.

On the bright side, the tennis world will never again have to ask “who is Pablo Carreno Busta” after this first-round French Open match.

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