Carreño Busta saves 12 break points and battles through in Shanghai

Some wins look comfortable in a highlight reel. Others require a player to keep rescuing the same afternoon, one difficult point at a time. Pablo Carreño Busta's latest match belonged firmly in the second category.

The Spaniard beat Argentina's Mariano Navone 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the Shanghai Masters first round on October 8. The official tournament record confirms the result, which levels their head-to-head record at one win each.

Carreño Busta, 35, entered the match ranked No. 65, below Navone at No. 47. Their previous meeting had gone the Argentine's way at Roland Garros in 2024. This time, after losing the opening set, the older player found a route back.

The number that explains the struggle

The revealing statistic is not an ace count or a huge serve. It is 12 out of 14. That is how many break points Carreño Busta saved, according to Tennis.com's match data.

A break point gives the player receiving serve a chance to win that game. Lose enough of those points and the match can run away very quickly. Carreño Busta faced repeated danger but allowed Navone to convert only two of those 14 opportunities.

At the other end, the Spaniard converted three of his ten break chances. Neither player was cruising. Both finished with six aces, while Carreño Busta won 58% of the points played on his second serve, compared with Navone's 48%.

Those figures help explain how a match can turn without one player suddenly becoming untouchable. Winning the right handful of points can matter more than making every game look easy.

A long wait ends

Spanish newspaper AS reported that it was Carreño Busta's first victory in Shanghai for seven years. It also reported that he dealt with cramps during the match and would next face Chile's Alejandro Tabilo.

The contest lasted two hours and 50 minutes, a duration also listed by Tennis Majors. Winning the second set 7-5 gave Carreño Busta a fresh start. Taking the decider 6-3 finally let him close the argument.

There was no title on the line here. This was an opening-round win, with much harder work potentially ahead. But a long tournament begins with getting through the match in front of you, especially when the scoreboard first points the wrong way.

For Navone, the missed break chances will stand out. For Carreño Busta, the reward is another round and a result that required patience as much as shot-making. The comeback did not need to be pretty every minute. It needed to hold together until the last point.