Carreño Busta: 2024 Season Begins in Brisbane | ATP Tour

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Carreño Busta’s 15th season on the ATP Tour takes shape in Brisbane

The Spaniard awaits Dimitrov, after surpassing the previous one this Sunday

January 04, 2026

This season, specifically next April, it will be 15 years since Pablo Carreño Busta debuted on the ATP Tour. It was in Barcelona 2011, when he was 19 years old and was No. 314 in the PIF ATP Rankings.

After losing in that duel (l. to Paire), Carreño Busta would play a match again in an ATP Tour main draw in April 2013 at the ATP 250 in Casablanca. From then on, the player born in Gijón has not missed his appointment with the ATP Tour every season, demonstrating his consistency through matches and victories.

And 2026 looks like it will be no exception for the former No. 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings. The 34-year-old Spaniard secured his first main draw of this season this Sunday, after passing the qualifying phase of the Brisbane International presented by ANZ.

A day after beating the Italian Mattia Bellucci in a dramatic match that ended in the third set tie-break, Carreño Busta benefited from the retirement of Arthur Cazaux when the score was 5-3 in his favor. His first opponent will be two-time tournament winner Grigor Dimitrov.

It will be the eighth confrontation recorded by the Lexus ATP Head2Head between the two, which at the moment remains in favor of the Bulgarian by 4-3. Their most recent date dates back to 2021, also at this time of the season, in the third round of the Australian Open. On that occasion, the Spaniard retired at the beginning of the second set.

A year ago, the seven-time champion of an ATP Tour title was No. 196 in the world and now at No. 93 in the rankings he seems to have what it takes to continue recovering much of the ground he lost, mainly due to an elbow injury that kept him out of competition between 2023 and 2024.

The ATP 250 in Brisbane, which has been held since 2009 and has had renowned champions such as Roger Federer (2015), features big stars this year, including top seeds Daniil Medvedev and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, No. 13 and No. 14 in the PIF ATP Rankings, respectively.

See the full picture in Brisbane

Also this Sunday the first main draw matches were played in Brisbane, where the Americans Frances Tiafoe and the recent champion in the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF, Learner Tien, proved intractable, winning in two sets.

Tiafoe needed just one hour to beat local guest Aleksandar Vukic 6-2, 6-2 and now awaits the winner of the duel between top seed Daniil Medvedev and Hungarian Marton Fucsovics in the second round.

For his part, Tien stopped the Argentine Camilo Ugo Carabelli 7-6(4), 6-3 in one hour and 31 minutes. The eighth seed will meet in the second round with the Australian from the previous round James Ducworth or his compatriot Alex Michelsen.