Pablo Carreno Busta advanced to the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters on Wednesday when Alexander Bublik suddenly quit their match midway through the final set. The Kazakh had served for the match earlier on and failed to close it out, and decided to shake hands with his opponent after going a break down at 3-4 in the third, retiring the match and walking off court. It came two days after Bublik gave a bizarre post-match victory interview sharing his “hatred” for clay.
Bublik managed to get an impressive three-set victory over former champion Stan Wawrinka in the first round, in what was the former world No 3’s first ATP Tour match in 13 months. He then found himself two points from the third round in Monte Carlo when he served for the match at 6-4 5-4 against Carreno Busta.
But the world No 36 was broken and went on to lose the second set in a tiebreak, later going a break down at 3-4 in the decider. Once his opponent had taken a break lead to put himself within two games of the match, Bublik marched over to the Spaniard at the change of ends and shook his hand to retire the match, packing his thing and leaving the court.
The 24-year-old had not appeared injured and did not call for the trainer before abandoning the match. His sudden retirement came days after he slated the clay surface following his victory over Wawrinka and claimed he shouldn’t have won the match.
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“The only thing I can say is I wish Stan a good recovery. If he was in shape I wouldn’t be standing here,” the recent Montpellier champion said after Monday’s match. “I wish the clay will end and we go onto grass. There was no match from my side, I hate clay, that is a statement – I hate this surface.”
He then doubled-down on his comments speaking on Tennis Channel as he said: “It’s a clay court, I’m running like an elephant, I cannot stop, I cannot explode, I cannot do anything. So yeah, I mean at least guys love it, I can make these comments sitting with you here but we all hope [Wawrinka] is going to be back on top of the game very soon. If he would be [playing me] maybe three months from now it would be three and three, thank you very much. And I’d go peacefully to the beach and that’s it.”
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The 24-year-old also revealed he had gained 6kg in weight during last year’s clay season because he “was not doing anything” thanks to his hatred of the surface. “I started [the] clay court swing [at] 80kg, I end up at the French Open 86kg. I was not doing anything. There is no practice, nobody wants to push me because it makes no sense,” he admitted.
Despite his declarations of hatred for the surface, Bublik will be back in action on the clay courts of Barcelona next week for the ATP 500 event. Meanwhile in Monte Carlo, Carreno Busta will go on to face the winner of a clash between Alexander Zverev and Federico Delbonis after being handed his second-round win via retirement.
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