TennisNH

Dimitrov Moves Past Ailing Carreno Busta In Melbourne

12-Feb-2021 04:06:00 | ATP World Tour

No. 18 seed Grigor Dimitrov moved into the fourth round at the Australian Open after Pablo Carreno Busta was forced to retire in the second set due to illness, trailing 6-0 1-0 (ret.) on Monday. 

The Bulgarian has yet to drop a set at the year’s first Grand Slam tournament. Dimitrov fought through a tough opening round test against former US Open champion Marin Cilic, a finalist here in 2018, to win 6-2, 6-4, 7-6(5). He backed it up with another strong performance against Australian Alex Bolt, 7-6(1), 6-1, 6-2 to reach the third round. 

Dimitrov came out swinging against Carreno Busta inside Margaret Court Arena, and didn’t face much resistance as he reeled off the first seven games in a row. The ailing Spaniard struggled to keep up with Dimitrov as he fired 10 winners, with Carreno Busta racking up 20 unforced errors. 

After taking a medical time out between sets, Carreno Busta took the court in an attempt to carry on, but was quickly broken by Dimitrov before retiring from the match after 38 minutes.

“Clearly it’s very unfortunate for him,” Dimitrov said in his on-court interview afterward. “But I also want to give myself a little bit of the credit because I stayed in the match. I stayed focussed. The first sets of tournaments like [this] are so important, so I also wanted to save a lot of energy.”

Dimitrov will need that extra energy in the fourth round, where he will face the winner of No. 3 seed Dominic Thiem, last year’s finalist, and home favourite Nick Kyrgios for a shot at the quarter-finals.