Yunchaokete Bu becomes second Chinese male ever to reach China Open quarter-final after overpowering No. 6 seed Lorenzo Musetti

Wild card Yunchaokete Bu earned the biggest win of his career over No. 6 seed Lorenzo Musetti on Sunday to become the second Chinese man in China Open history (since 2004) to reach the quarter-finals. Bu defeated the World No. 18 Italian 6-2, 6-4.

This was Bu’s first win against a Top 20 player and second consecutive quarter-final appearance after his first ATP Tour semi-final in Hangzhou last week. The only other Chinese man to reach the China Open quarter-finals was Zhang Ze in 2012.

Coming into the match, Musetti had been red hot since June with a record of 27-6. He won a bronze medal in the Paris Olympics, becoming the first Italian tennis singles medalist. He reached his third ATP Tour final of the year in Chengdu, and defeated qualifier Zizou Bergs in the first round of the China Open.

The final remaining Chinese man in the tournament, the 22-year-old Bu moved past fellow countryman Juncheng Shang in the first round. Coming into Sunday’s match, he had played just seven tour-level matches this year and 10 in his young career.

Bu took control early in the first set, taking advantage of two double-faults from Musetti to break his serve in the first game. Bu dominated every aspect of the first set, winning 84 percent of his service points and racking up nine winners. He outscored Musetti by 13 points and held every service game to take an easy first set win.

The second set looked like a repeat of the first after Bu took a 4-1 lead. Then, sparked by a Bu double-fault and a grueling 14-point game, Musetti broke Bu’s serve for the first time of the match. He went on to win two more games, including another break of Bu’s serve to tie the set at 4-4.

“My serve percentage was going low, first serve was very bad,” Bu said after the match, referring to the three-game skid. “In the baseline, I lost little bit of patience, I couldn’t really calm down. I was a little bit hurried.”

Bu had been in a similar position just a few days ago in his first round match against Shang when he lost the opening set but rallied to win in three sets.

“I was really happy when the score was four-all, I started remembering the first one, I had the same position, same. I just push myself,” Bu said.

He finished the last two games by breaking Musetti’s serve for the fifth time and serving out the match at-love.

Bu will next face the winner of World No. 6 Andrey Rublev and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. He has only played one match against a Top 10 player, which he lost to then-World No. 8 Casper Ruud in the U.S. Open second round last month.

—Reporting by Ryan Loomer