Pablo Carreno Busta has reached his first ATP Masters 1000 final…

The 31-year-old Spanish professional tennis player defeated Britain’s Daniel Evans 7-5, 6-7 (7), 6-2 in the semifinals of the National Bank Open.

Carreno Busta had a match point in the second-set tie-break but saw his perfect set streak on the week snapped at nine before storming back in a dominant final set.

After so little separated the competitors for most of the two-hour, 58-minute marathon, Carreno Busta raced through the finish line by winning the final 12 points, including eight on return.

“It was fun for the crowd but for me it was tough,” he said of the gripping encounter. “I had a match point in the second set but he served pretty good so I couldn’t do anything. When you have a match point and have to play another set, it’s always hard to do it.

“Mentally I think I was very good. Probably the beginning of the third set was the hardest part of the match. But after that I thought I had to be more aggressive, try to push a lot, try to go to the net, and it was good.”

Carreno Busta will next face eighth seed Hubert Hurkacz as he bids to become the first unseeded champion at the National Bank Open since Argentina’s Guillermo Canas in 2002.

The World No. 23 advanced to his second final of the season (Barcelona) by pairing his aggressive baseline game with a dominant first-serve performance in which he won 79 per cent (49/62) of points on his first delivery. He fired 43 winners and broke on five of his eight chances as he took control of the match down the stretch.

Despite neither player being seeded, this semi-final was a heavyweight fight complete with both men hitting the deck after being wrong-footed in a bruising rally. After Evans fell earlier in the match, Carreno Busta slipped late in the second-set tie-break to hand a mini-break back to Evans.

Carreno Busta knocked off seeded Italians Matteo Berrettini and Jannik Sinner to kickstart his Montreal run, a welcome change from what he called “probably the worst year of my career”. He now has a chance to claim his seventh and biggest ATP Tour title.

“This week, I don’t know why but the level was unbelievable,” he said. “I played really good matches at the beginning of the tournament. Yesterday [against Jack Draper] was not the best match but I suffered and I competed a lot. Today was the same. Probably I didn’t play the best tennis of the week but it’s very important to win these kind of matches when you are not playing your best. Happy to be in the final…. For sure I’m excited.”