Brooksby Roars Past Bautista Agut, Sets Medvedev Showdown In Miami

Never count out Jenson Brooksby. The 21-year-old proved why on Monday when he rallied from 0-4 down in the deciding set to stun 15th seed Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 and reach the fourth round of the Miami Open presented by Itau.

“I’m happy to get through that one. I thought my competing today was a lot better. Still a little streaky, but usually it would be easy to mentally fold in that situation, I think,” Brooksby said. “But I stayed really mentally strong, I competed until the end and it went my way.”

Brooksby, who dispatched 18th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili with the loss of only four games in the second round, has quickly established himself as a difficult out for the world’s best players. That will be put to the ultimate test in the next round when he challenges top seed Daniil Medvedev.

The home favourite began the season with one ATP Masters 1000 win, but he is now 7-3 at this level, having also advanced to the Round of 16 at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. During this March Masters swing, Brooksby has earned three wins against current or former Top 10 players.

It was a gruelling match against Bautista Agut, who is one of the best baseliners on Tour. Early on, Brooksby showed impressive shotmaking. But his Spanish opponent used his consistency to hang around and quickly earned two breaks in the third set to seize full control. 

But instead of capitulating, two-time ATP Tour finalist Brooksby locked down from the back of the court and clawed his way to six consecutive games and with them, the victory after two hours and 59 minutes

“Unfortunately I had lower energy to start the third and I put myself in a lot of trouble there because of that,” Brooksby said. “But I was glad to mentally turn that around.”

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Brooksby has experience against the very best. At last year’s US Open, he won the first set against Novak Djokovic before losing in four sets.

Another American advanced when Indian Wells champion Taylor Fritz defeated close friend and countryman Tommy Paul 7-6(2), 6-4.

Fritz needed three sets in his second-round clash against Mikhail Kukushkin, but against Paul he converted the two break points he earned to move on after one hour and 33 minutes.

“Obviously my body is feeling it a bit, but I’m kind of just thinking [that] I’m playing good, my confidence is high, so I want to keep riding it out as much as possible instead of the other way you can go, which is kind of being satisfied and being, ‘Oh, I did really well this week, it’s okay if I don’t do so well the next week,'” Fritz said. “I kind of just kept telling myself to not be satisfied with doing well in Indian Wells. I want to do well here.”

Fritz will next play in-form Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, who eliminated American Sebastian Korda7-6(4), 6-3. Kecmanovic battled into the Indian Wells quarter-finals, in which he lost to Fritz in three sets.