Tomas Berdych is through to the Miami Open quarter-finals after edging Richard Gasquet 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in two hours and 28 minutes on a humid Tuesday at Crandon Park.

The seventh-seeded Czech will face either World No. 1 Novak Djokovic or 14th seed Dominic Thiem for a place in the semi-finals at the second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament of the year.

The 30-year-old Berdych claimed his 30th win in Miami as he advanced to the quarter-finals for the seventh time in 12 appearances. He went on to reach the final in 2010, finishing runner-up to Andy Roddick.

Berdych levelled his FedEx ATP Head2Head with Gasquet at 7-7 after edging the Frenchman in trying conditions. The right-hander rallied from a breakdown in the first set, reeling off four straight games from 2-4 down to clinch the opener.

Gasquet was able to hold on to his early break lead in the second set as he levelled the match, but it was Berdych who came good at the crunch stage, breaking Gasquet in the 11th game of the decider before serving out to love.

World No. 15 David Goffin is through to his second straight ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final after beating Horacio Zeballos 7-5, 6-3. The Belgian lost just eight points on serve and converted three of his nine break point opportunities as he defeated the lucky loser in 86 minutes.

Goffin is coming off his first Masters 1000 semi-final showing in Indian Wells, where he defeated Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic before falling to Milos Raonic. The 25 year old is the first Belgian man in tournament history to reach the quarter-finals in Miami.

Next up for Goffin will be Gilles Simon, who swept aside fellow Frenchman Lucas Pouille 6-0, 6-1 in just 58 minutes, relinquishing only 11 points on serve. 

Fourth-round action on Tuesday is led by World No.1 and five-time Miami Open champion Novak Djokovic, No. 6 Kei Nishikori, No. 7 Tomas Berdych and No. 10 Richard Gasquet, who is one of a tournament record four Frenchmen through to the Round of 16. In the bottom half of the draw, a first-time Miami finalist is guaranteed.

In the opening match on Stadium, No. 10 Gasquet brings a 7-6 FedEx Head2Head record against No. 7 Berdych. The Frenchman holds a 16-15 edge in sets won. This is their 10th meeting on hard courts and Gasquet leads 5-4, having won the most recent meeting in the fourth round at last year’s US Open.

In their previous Miami meeting, in the quarter-finals three years ago, Gasquet won 6-3, 6-3. He is trying to reach his second quarter-final in Miami (semi-finals in ’13) while Berdych is attempting to advance to his fourth straight quarter-final and six in the past seven years. He is also eyeing his 30th career win in Miami.

In the third match on, Djokovic and No. 14 Dominic Thiem – co-leaders for the most ATP World Tour match wins this season (24) – meet for the second time. Djokovic won the previous meeting 6-3, 6-4 in the second round at ATP Masters 1000 Shanghai in October 2014. Djokovic has won 26 of his past 27 matches in Miami since 2011 and owns a 24-1 record on the season.

Thiem, who is the youngest player (22) in the Top 20 of the Emirates ATP Rankings at No. 14, is trying to reach the quarter-finals for the second year in a row. He is also looking to post his first career Top 10 win on hard courts (0-8).

In the final day session match, No. 16 Gael Monfils and No. 26 Grigor Dimitrov square off for the fifth time (Monfils leads 3-1, 2-0 on hard courts). The winner will advance to the Miami quarter-finals for the first time. Monfils is appearing in the fourth round for the fourth time while Dimitrov, who beat No. 2 seed Andy Murray on Monday, is making his first appearance in the fourth round since 2012.

In the evening session, No. 6 Nishikori looks to increase his unbeaten record (3-0) against No. 17 Roberto Bautista Agut, who is making his first appearance in the fourth round. Their three previous meetings came on clay in Spain. Nishikori, who reached the semi-finals in 2014, is playing in the fourth round for the fifth consecutive year. He is the highest-ranked player left in the bottom half of the draw.

On Grandstand, Argentine lucky loser Horacio Zeballos, plays No. 15 David Goffin for the fourth time (Goffin leads 2-1). Zeballos won the only previous hard court meeting in the first round of the Miami Open two years ago.

In the next match on, an all-French meeting takes place with No. 18 Gilles Simon and unseeded Lucas Pouille, who is coming off his first career Top 10 win over No. 8 David Ferrer. Simon won the previous meeting in the first round at Roland Garros last year.

Next up is a first-time meeting between Next Generation star, No. 24 seed Nick Kyrgios, and Russian Andrey Kuznetsov, who will break into the Top 50 of the Emirates ATP Rankings next week. In the final match on, No. 12 Milos Raonic and Bosnian Damir Dzumhur meet for the first time. Raonic, who is off to a career-best 16-2 start, is trying to reach the quarter-finals in Miami for the second time (2014).

Milos Raonic made it seven in a row against American Jack Sock on Monday and is now one win away from matching his best showing at the Miami Open presented by Itau.

With his trademark big serve and controlled groundstrokes, Raonic dispatched the No. 22 seed, 7-6(3), 6-4 during the night session at Crandon Park. The Canadian hit 12 aces and won 81 per cent of his first-serve points. Raonic also hit 21 winners to 24 unforced errors. Sock, meanwhile, almost doubled his winners count – 17 – with unforced errors – 31.

Raonic didn’t start the match the calmer player, though. Sock elected to receive and seven points later, including two double faults from Raonic, the American had a rarity against Raonic, a break point. But the No. 12 seed served his way to an early hold, and the young ATP World Tour stars traded holds for the remainder of the set.

The tie-break was decidedly one-sided, though. Raonic sprinted to a 5-0 lead. Sock clawed within three points, but a missed backhand drop shot gave Raonic a one-set lead.

The tie-break seemed to temporarily wound Sock’s spirits as well. After holding serve six times in the first set, the 22-year-old was broken during his first service game of the second. At 3-4 in the second set, Sock had four chances to break back but he failed to convert any of them.

Raonic, who last made the Miami quarter-finals in 2014, will face Bosnian Damir Dzumhur with a quarter-finals trip on the line. Dzumhur beat Mikhail Kukushkin on Monday 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert just keep winning at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments in March. The Frenchmen won the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells earlier this month. On Monday, they moved a step closer to winning the Miami Open, beating Pakistani Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-3.

The No. 5 seeds broke their opponents three times and never faced a break point en route to the straight-set win. Mahut and Herbert’s quarter-finals match will be an all-French affair. They’ll face compatriots Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin.

The No. 4 seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan advanced to the quarter-finals by default. Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, who was playing with Serbian Viktor Troicki, withdrew because of dehydration. Bautista Agut’s singles match Monday afternoon lasted two hours and 28 minutes in humid conditions.

The Bryans will face the remaining wild card doubles team, Australians Omar Jasika and John-Patrick Smith. The Aussies beat Spaniard David Marrero and Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4 on Monday.

South African Raven Klaasen and American Rajeev Ram also won on Monday. They eliminated the Croatian team of Marin Cilic and Marin Draganja 7-6(10), 6-0.

Grigor Dimitrov dug deep to upset World No. 2 Andy Murray 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-3 in the third round of the Miami Open presented by Itau on Monday. The stylish Bulgarian had not defeated a Top-10 player since May 2015 (d. Wawrinka in Madrid) and was looking for his first win over a higher-ranked opponent since January 2016 (d. Troicki in Brisbane), but made the most of his game to grind out the win in two hours and 25 minutes.

Dimitrov started slowly, going down 0-40 in his opening service game and dropping serve two games later. He broke Murray right back to force a first-set tie-break, but hit a rough patch and lost 7-1 to fall behind.

The No. 28 in the Emirates ATP Rankings did not dwell on the negatives and quickly rebounded, racing to a 4-1 second set lead. He took control of the match by extending the baseline rallies, opening up the court with heavy topspin drives and forcing Murray into uncharacteristic errors. Dimitrov went 5-for-6 on break points in the final two sets and improved to 3-6 in the pair’s FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry when Murray hit the ball long on match point.

“[I made] a lot of unforced errors in the third set,” Murray said. “Obviously, I didn’t start the second set particularly well. After winning a close first set you want to try and put your opponent under pressure.

“I think I lost my first two service games to love, so that wasn’t very good. Then in the third set, he managed to get up a break and then I made a lot of unforced errors. Credit to him. He was more solid than me.”

It was Dimitrov’s second win in 13 attempts against a player ranked in the Top 2. His only previous fourth-round appearance in Miami came in 2012 (l. to Tipsarevic).

Nick Kyrgios powered past Tim Smyczek 6-4, 6-4 in 87 minutes to set up a meeting with Andrey Kuznetsov in the fourth round. The Aussie averaged 121mph on first serves and fired nine aces to move into the fourth round of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event for the first time. He improved to 11-3 on the year.

There is a golfing term that perfectly sums up the uneven relationship between the fairway and the green – “you drive for show, but you putt for dough”.

That phrase speaks volumes to understanding the importance of the deuce court and ad court in tennis, specifically relating to break points.

The deuce court is the fairway, always hosting the beginning of the game, and the ad court is the green, where the majority of the winning and losing in our sport takes place.

You would expect Top 25 players to perform better where most of the action occurs – in the ad court – but surprisingly, it’s just the opposite.

An Infosys ATP Beyond the Numbers analysis of the Top 25 in the Emirates ATP Rankings in the 2015 season, and also the first two months of this year, clearly shows that “putting for dough” in the ad court has some catching up to do.

More than three out of four (76.6 per cent) of all break points occurred in the ad court last year in this Top 25 analysis. The only break point opportunity in the deuce court in tennis occurs at 15-40, which equated to just 23.4 per cent of the time.

What’s puzzling is that the Top 25 in the world perform better converting break points in the deuce court than the ad court.

After two months of competition in the 2016 season, those same trends are all very close to the much bigger data set of the 11 months of the 2015 season.

Hidden Djokovic Advantage

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic had a season for the ages in 2015. He went 82-6, winning 11 titles, including three Grand Slams, six ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Djokovic also amassed more than $21 million in prize money.

Interestingly, Djokovic was one of only five players of the 2015 year-end Top 25 who had a superior winning percentage converting break points in the ad court than in the deuce.

Djokovic converted break points 46.6 per cent of the time in the ad court and 42.5 per cent of the time in the deuce court. The other players to be better in the ad court were David Ferrer, David Goffin, Fabio Fognini and Viktor Troicki.

A common thread to figure out why these five players are different needs to focus on the formidable backhand strength each of them possesses, and the increased amount of early action the backhand typically sees when points start in the ad court.

That’s not to say other Top 25 players don’t have remarkable backhands, as they clearly do, but these five have figured out a way to improve their personal ad court performance.

For a right-handed player to turn a backhand return into forehand, it seems easier to do it in the deuce court, where they run around to the middle of the court, rather than running off the court in the ad court.

Ad Court – Best at Converting Break Points

But flying in the face of that wisdom is Rafael Nadal, who converted break points 52.8 per cent in the deuce court, where he would have to run off the court to hit a forehand, and 40.8 per cent in the ad, where he would get to run to the middle of the court.

Practice Court

Another factor for consideration is the practice court.

At all levels of the game, the most common side to practice serve and return is the deuce court, where games naturally begin. Developing the angles and strategy in the ad court simply does not get the same amount of practice time as the deuce court does – even though more than three out of four of the “big” points happen in the ad.

Overview

The difference between good and great in our sport is very difficult to put your finger on and often times exists between the ears, or in the hidden flow of tactics all over court.

Decorated South African golfer, Bobby Locke, who won four golfing “Grand Slams” at the Open Championship, knew exactly the message he was sending with his famous “putt for dough” quote.

These break point numbers shed light on a critical element of our sport and open the door for more insight and discussion as to just how players make the leap from good to great to legend status in our sport.