Carreño Busta, ranked No. 876 less than two years ago, into the Roland-Garros fourth round at 34
Pablo Carreno Busta edged out Thiago Agustin Tirante 7-6, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 on Friday and will play the winner of the match between American Alex Michelsen and Spaniard Rafael Jodar, the No 27 seed, in the next round
Pablo Carreño Busta, Roland-Garros 2026 | © Gepa / PsNewz
Pablo Carreño Busta, the 34-year-old Spaniard who has spent the past two years rebuilding from outside the world’s elite, beat Argentina’s Thiago Agustín Tirante 7-6(0), 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 on Friday to reach the round of 16 at Roland-Garros, his first Grand Slam fourth round since the 2022 US Open, and the culmination of a comeback that has run through Challenger qualifying queues for the better part of two seasons.
“Today was almost a perfect match on my side,” he said afterwards. “I was very focused on my serve, and very aggressive. In the third set I lost a bit of energy, and I suffered a little. But in the fourth, I came back with the same energy I had at the start. I knew today I had to be aggressive and dominate every point.”
The road back has not been short. Carreño Busta was No. 10 in the world in 2018, lifted his only ATP Masters 1000 title in Toronto in 2022, and was a US Open semi-finalist in 2017 and 2020 and a Roland-Garros quarter-finalist in 2017 and 2020. A right-elbow surgery in 2022 cost him 18 months of competitive tennis and dropped him out of the world’s top 1,000 for the first time since 2009.
He defended a Tenerife Challenger title in 2025, won Murcia earlier in 2026, and reached the Montemar final this spring before arriving in Paris ranked No. 89.
The win sends him to No. 67 on the live rankings, 23 places higher than where he started the tournament. He faces the winner of Spain’s Rafael Jódar, the 27th seed.
