Roberto Bautista beats a Top 20 player and advances to CF in Mallorca | ATP Tour

Mallorca

Bautista beats a Top 20 and advances to CF in Mallorca

The Spaniard reaches the quarterfinals on an ATP Tour for the second time in 2024

June 25, 2024

There’s nothing like playing at home. And Roberto Bautista Agut has a special relationship with the Mallorca Championships presented by Waterdrop, where he already played in the final round in 2022.

The Spaniard has reached the quarterfinals in all his participations on grass in this ATP 250 tournament. The most recent, this Tuesday against the No. 2 seed Ugo Humbert, after winning 3-6, 6-3, 6 -4.

“I haven’t even looked at the draw, I’m going very slowly,” he told ATPTour.com about the possibility of going further in the tournament. “I haven’t been winning many matches and I’m going little by little. Now I’m going to enjoy today’s victory. I’m really looking forward to and very motivated to do well here in Mallorca.”

In two hours and 29 minutes, the Castellón native defeated a Top 20 opponent for the first time since last year in Halle, on precisely the same surface (d. No. 3 Medvedev).

Bautista Agut thus ended a streak of four consecutive losses against a Top 20 player this season. “It is perhaps the most difficult time I have had to go through as a tennis player. I thought it would be a simple injury and it has been something very complicated, something I have practically never experienced before,” he admitted to ATPTour.com.

At 36 years old, with much of his career already written, the man from Castellón faces one of his greatest challenges. Last August he suffered an unfortunate fibula fracture while horseback riding, one of his great passions off the track. The mishap had obvious consequences: weeks out of competition, a complicated rehabilitation and, since last week, the exit from the World Top 120, something unprecedented in the last 12 seasons.

“I have had to sacrifice six months of the season and December and that is reflected in the ranking,” added the current No. 122 PIF ATP Rankings. “When you see that through some misfortune you are 80 or 100 and something, you get a little nervous, anxious. It is not easy to play with that need to add points, it is something that I am learning, assimilating and it is difficult but I will achieve it.”

One of the keys to their good relationship in the Balearic tournament is the surface. Despite being a Mediterranean player, he performs perfectly on grass. So much so that it is the field in which he offers the best success rate with a record of 47-21 (69%).

Already in ‘s-Hertogenbosch he had been on the verge of playing in the quarterfinals, after losing to Milos Raonic in the second round in a tight third set. “I have been playing well, perhaps I am missing those victories that just gave you confidence and luckily today I have achieved a great victory and I am sure that it will be very good for me in order to have more confidence in the following games.”

This Thursday he will seek the semi-finals in Mallorca against his compatriot Roberto Carballés Baena or Gael Monfils.