[Sport]Carreño's long road back: injuries and losses before exploding again in New York

[SougarLord]

It seemed that Pablo Carreño had reached his peak in 2017. That year he reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and was a semi-finalist at Indian Wells and the US Open. His adventure in Flushing Meadows lifted him to No. 10 in the world, but what followed was not glory but an injury-plagued ordeal that shaken that determination he has displayed this week against Novak Djokovic or Denis Shapovalov. After a long road, the Asturian has returned where it all should have started, the US Open semifinals.

 

Even the beginning of that string of injuries can be traced to New York: a year after having caressed a Spanish final against Rafa Nadal, he had to leave in the second round due to a muscle problem in his left leg. The injury cost him a month of competition and on his return he ended up being hit on the back, a recurring problem for the Asturian: at only 21 years old, his career was endangered by a herniated disc in the lumbar area, the same part in which this Tuesday he had annoyances against Shapovalov.

 

But the worst was 2019. He started out strong touching the quarter-finals in Australia, where he ended up booed for his bad manners with the chair umpire after a controversial (and wrong) decision decided a match of more than five hours. But everything went wrong from there. A week later he had to leave in Córdoba (Argentina) due to a shoulder problem that, between gravity and relapses, forced him to cancel six tournaments in a row. Buenos Aires, Rio, Indian Wells, Miami, Marrakech and Montecarlo were falling one after another from their calendar.

 

IN THE FIRST ROUND

Carreño lived there his lowest point, unable to pick up pace and without confidence. After two months standing, he linked defeats in the first round in Barcelona, Estoril, Madrid and Rome. And when he seemed to take flight at Roland Garros, where he had won the first two games with enormous solvency, another injury, this time to the right thigh, and another month inactive. The Asturian, who had become number 10 in the world, who had started the year in 24, fell to 69 before starting to take flight.

 

In September, after a good showing at Cincinnati and the US Open, he managed to break a two-and-a-half-year title drought in Chengdu. A minor tournament, but one that confirmed the upward trajectory that he had begun to mark at Wimbledon. Even then he did not have respite: in October he left Vienna due to back discomfort and in November he fell from the Davis Cup half an hour before the semifinal due to a left leg injury. With good reason, when he spoke of his goals for this 2020, the first thing was the conditional: "If the injuries respect me," he said, "I hope to get close to the Top 10 again."

 

Carreño started this 2020 helping Spain reach the final of the new ATP Cup. The man from Gijón came as number three of the national team and won five of the six points in the doubles. They only lost the last one against Serbia. It was an atypical start to the season, but one that helped him pick up his pace. At the Australian Open he fell in the third round against Nadal and in Rotterdam he reached the semifinals, where Felix Auger-Aliassime cut him off.

 

"SHRED, BUT VERY HAPPY"

It was precisely in doubles where he won his first title of the season: 10 days ago he won the Cincinnati Masters 1000 with Alex de Miñaur on that same track where he will play the semifinals of the US Open this Friday, the last station on this long road back to the top of his career.

 

In that 2017 edition, a friendly team played in his favor, in which he did not meet any player who was among the top 30 of the circuit. Interestingly enough, Shapovalov was also measured, but then the Canadian, just coming of age, had only just begun to scratch the surface of his talent.

 

Also this time Carreño has been lucky with the disqualification of Djokovic, but if the Serbian ended up losing his nerves, it was largely because he could not find a way to get his hand on Samuel López's disciple. The Asturian showed the same solidity and determination with which he disarmed the backhand through Shapovalov in the quarterfinals. "I am devastated but very, very happy," Carreño confessed after sealing the ticket back to the US Open semifinals. After four hours of play, he could use the two days off before taking on one of the favorites, Alexander Zverev.