Kyrgios credits impressive return game for win over Carreno Busta - "I applied so much pressure on his serve"
ATP
Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios put on a spectacular display as he defeated Pablo Carreno Busta at the Terra Wortmann Open Halle on Friday, advancing to his third tour-level semifinal of 2022.
The former World No.13 raced to a 6-4 6-2 victory over the sixth seed, firing 13 aces and an astounding 37 winners in just an hour and nine minutes.
“I’m feeling so comfortable on the grass," said Kyrgios after the match. "Today was not easy at all. The scoreline suggest that it was, but he’s a dangerous player on all surfaces. He hits the ball quite flat, and he knows how to win matches.
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"I knew that today I just had to take care of my serve, and just be locked in from the ground because he’s a tough competitor.”
The win backs up Kyrgios' hard-fought triumph against World No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round. The Australian admitted that he had been keen to avoid falling behind against Carreno Busta as he had against the Greek.
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“Against Tsitsipas I wanted to get that first set," he said. "I know how much it means to get on top of those top players early on. Today from the get-go I applied so much pressure on his serve, and I thought I just returned really well today.”
In Saturday’s semifinals, Kyrgios will face Hubert Hurkacz as he aims to reach his first tour-level championship match appearance of the season. The Aussie could rise as high as No. 30 if he can lift a seventh ATP Tour trophy at the ATP 500 event.
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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