Miami Open: British number one Cameron Norrie beats Hugo Gaston
British number one Cameron Norrie books his place in the last 16 of the Miami Open with a straight-set win over Hugo Gaston.
British number one Cameron Norrie books his place in the last 16 of the Miami Open with a straight-set win over Hugo Gaston.
Linda Fruhvirtova, one of the next future stars in Czech tennis, will look to continue her surprise run in Miami. The 16 year-old…
For his third straight match, Stefanos Tsitsipas went three sets against an unseeded American at an ATP Masters 1000 event. After beating Jack Sock and losing to Jenson Brooksby in Indian Wells, the Greek was victorious against J.J. Wolf on Saturday at the Miami Open presented by Itau.
In a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-1 win, Tsitsipas faced a much tougher test than he did one month ago in Acapulco, when he dropped just one game against the Ohio State product.
“Always expect him to play the match of his life. He had nothing to lose,” Tsitsipas said of his mindset entering his Miami opener. “I very much know how to handle situations like this, speaking from experience. It kind of worked in the third set. I think letting go and relaxing a bit helped me a lot and gave me that win.”
Both men flashed inventive shotmaking in a gripping encounter in Hard Rock Stadium, with a hard-fought second set providing the picks of the bunch. Tsitsipas improvised a forehand slice with his hand on his racquet’s throat, then followed it up with a backhand pass. Soon after, Wolf one-upped that effort with a lefty forehand winner on the dead run as the second set came to a boil.
When the two 23-year-olds were not filling up the highlight reel, the match was all about first-strike tennis, with each man looking to attack with the forehand and finish points at the net. But for all the baseline brilliance, the serve proved the dominant shot for much of the night.
After struggling to make returns early, Tsitsipas converted on the first break point of the match to pocket the opening set. Wolf countered with an immediate break to open the second and later found two big serves to bring up set point in the tie-break. After captivating the Miami crowd with his upset effort, the American brought his supporters to fever pitch as he forced a decider.
The final set was all Tsitsipas, as the third seed began to dictate in all phases of play. The Greek broke in each of his four return games in the stanza, giving him six total breaks in the two-hour match. He finished with 37 winners, including 20 off the forehand, compared to 20 errors.
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He will next face 25th seed Alex de Minaur, a 6-2, 6-3 winner over fellow Aussie Jordan Thompson.
“He’s a fighter,” Tsitsipas said of de Minaur, against whom he holds a 7-0 ATP Head2Head advantage. “I really hope to bring out the same kind of level that I brought in the third set, and maintain that throughout the match.”
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The Miami Open presented by Itau reaches its third-round stage on Sunday, with 2021 finalist Jannik Sinner and second seed Alexander Zverev seeking simpler paths after battling opening wins. Nick Kyrgios has had no such issues in Miami so far and faces Fabio Fognini in an intriguing battle of two ATP Tour showmen, while Casper Ruud, Cameron Norrie and Gael Monfils are also chasing a spot in the last 16 at Hard Rock Stadium.
It may have had a bumpy start, but Jannik Sinner’s Miami campaign is up and running.
The 20-year-old Italian hit a significant milestone in south Florida in 2021, reaching a maiden ATP Masters 1000 championship match before falling to Hubert Hurkacz. Sinner enjoyed a less-than-welcoming return to Hard Rock Stadium on Friday as Emil Ruusuvuori pushed him to a deciding set tie-break, but despite that struggle the World No. 11 is feeling optimistic as he prepares for his third-round clash with Pablo Carreno Busta on Sunday.
“It gives [me] a lot of confidence for sure, but there are some things [that] I have to work on,” said Sinner after Friday’s match. “There are positive things, but also I have some things to improve. I think mentally I was strong today, but tennis-wise there are some things to improve.”
The ninth seed will certainly need to find his level to overcome Carreno Busta, the World No. 19 who won the pair’s only previous meeting in Rotterdam in 2020. The Spaniard also knows how to forge a deep run in south Florida, reaching the semi-finals when he last played the tournament in 2018.
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Sinner or Carreno Busta’s fourth-round opponent will be decided in a meeting between two of the ATP Tour’s greatest showmen, Nick Kyrgios and Fabio Fognini.
When Kyrgios’ game clicks things tend to happen quickly, no matter who is standing on the other side of the net. The Australian produced one of the performances of the season in the second round to cruise past fifth seed Andrey Rublev, who came into the clash with an 18-3 record in 2022, in just 52 minutes.
“I’ve been returning well the past four months,” said Kyrgios after securing victory for the loss of just three games. “And I guess when that’s happening, I’m serving the way I’m serving, I’m feeling the way I’m feeling, my shoulders open up and I just ran with it.”
Kyrgios faces an opponent on Sunday who is just as capable of such destructive match-winning spells. World No. 34 Fognini has an 11-9 match record in Miami but was a semi-finalist in 2017 and showed he is willing to dig deep in his three-set win over Taro Daniel in the second round on Friday. Kyrgios and Fognini’s only previous meeting came in 2018, also in the third-round in Miami, the Australian running out a 6-3, 6-3 winner.
Alexander Zverev is chasing his first title of the year in Miami and will hope his battling three-set win over Borna Coric on Friday is the catalyst for something special as he prepares to prepares to face World No. 54 Mackenzie McDonald in the third round.
The German suffered a deciding tie-break loss to Jenson Brooksby at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and, perhaps with that defeat in mind, felt that the nature of his win over Coric was as important as the result itself.
“I needed a win,” said Zverev after beating the Croatian 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. “I needed a three-set win as well. Obviously, when you’re up a set, you don’t want to go three sets, and yet I’m happy with how everything went.”
Zverev holds a 2-0 ATP Head2Head series lead over McDonald, including a straight-sets win in Montpellier in February, but the American is enjoying his best run in Miami after upsetting 26th seed Grigor Dimitrov in the second round.
Waiting in the fourth round for Zverev or McDonald will be Thanasi Kokkinakis or Denis Kudla. Kokkinakis saved match point with a stunning backhand pass before completing a comeback win against Diego Schwartzman in the second round, and the Australian will hope for more moments of magic as he seeks a first win over the American qualifier. Kudla is flying high after beating Juncheng Shang and Lorenzo Sonego to reach the third round of a Masters 1000 event for the second time, however, and he has topped Kokkinakis in both of the pair’s previous meetings.
Sixth seed Casper Ruud will seek to maintain his perfect Masters 1000 record against Alexander Bublik. Ruud beat the Kazakh at both the Mutua Madrid Open and the Rolex Paris Masters in 2021 and stormed through his second-round clash against Henri Laaksonen on Friday for the loss of just three games. Bublik edged the pair’s most recent meeting, however, with a three-set win in the Davis Cup qualifiers in March.
Ruud and Bublik’s potential fourth-round opponents are 10th seed Cameron Norrie and Hugo Gaston. Both carry momentum into their first ATP Head2Head meeting, with Norrie staying strong to oust emerging talent Jack Draper to reach the third round for the second year in a row.
Gaston breezed past wild card Emilio Nava for the loss of just three games to start his campaign and then upset another American, 2018 champion John Isner, in the second round. The Frenchman is making his first third-round appearance in Miami but has recent pedigree at Masters 1000 level, having beaten Carreno Busta and Carlos Alcaraz on his way to the quarter-finals of the Rolex Paris Masters in November.
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It’s been a memorable week in Miami so far for Argentine brothers Francisco Cerundolo and Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who have both reached the third round on debut at Hard Rock Stadium and will face each other in the last 16 if they win their respective matches on Sunday.
That will be a tough ask. 23-year-old Francisco faces 22nd seed Gael Monfils, whose second-round win over Oscar Otte was his first match in Miami since he reached the quarter-finals in 2016. Meanwhile 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals competitor Juan Manuel takes on home favourite Frances Tiafoe. Victory for the 28th-seeded American would make it four consecutive fourth-round appearances in Miami.
In the doubles, top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic continue their campaign with a second-round clash against Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov. The Croatian pairing started its title defence in style by beating Nikoloz Basilashvili and Laslo Djere in straight sets in the first round.
Fresh off his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final in Indian Wells, Carlos Alcaraz completed another first Saturday at the Miami Open presented by Itau.
The 18-year-old Spaniard scored his maiden win at the South Florida event with a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 result over Marton Fucsovics. The men entered the match trending in opposite directions in the ATP Rankings, and the result bore that out as Alcaraz continued his red-hot form.
At a career-high of World No. 16, the youngster controlled the opening set after an early break. Fucsovics, the World No. 55, made his charge early in the second. A marathon three game stretch decided the contest, with all three going the way of the 14th seed.
Havin’ a little fun 🕹@alcarazcarlos03 #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/s8jqhoLXNM
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) March 27, 2022
After battling through two deuces to break for 2-1, Alcaraz saved three break points to consolidate. Those were the only break points he faced in the match, and he added further cushion by breaking in a five-deuce game for 4-1.
The Spaniard sets up a meeting with 21st seed Marin Cilic, a 6-0, 6-3 winner over Alexei Popyrin.
Prior to the Alcaraz match on Court Butch Buchholz, South Africa’s Lloyd Harris scored a 6-3, 6-4 upset win over 12th seed Denis Shapovalov. The 25-year-old beat Argentina’s Facundo Bagnis in the first round in both Indian Wells and Miami, but was stopped at the second hurdle in the desert by Matteo Berrettini.
This time, he got past his first seeded opponent behind five service breaks. Shapovalov levelled both sets after falling behind early, but surrendered serve in the final game of each stanza. Harris finished the job on his third match point as the Canadian served to stay in the match
Catching some momentum 🇿🇦@lloydharris63 improves to 3-0 H2H against Shapovalov, winning their Miami encounter 6-3 6-4!#MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/kMZa9Pc2aA
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) March 27, 2022
In Daniil Medvedev’s quarter atop the Miami draw, Harris will take on Yoshihito Nishioka in the third round. The Japanese has progressed with a pair of three-set wins, including a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 result over Daniel Evans earlier on Saturday.
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How many times have you heard a player say that being more aggressive underpinned his victory? Surely more times than you have heard a player say that he turned around a match by playing more defensively!
Until now, we’ve accepted that attacking play typically is rewarded with a victory. A new tool now allows us to prove the thesis and dig deeper to better explain the narrative.
Tennis Data Innovations, formed in 2020 to enrich fans’ enjoyment and understanding of tennis through data, is launching a new metric called Balance of Power, which shows the percentage of shots played in offense, neutral and defence by both players.
The metric made its debut Saturday at the Miami Open presented by Itau across ATP Media’s World Feed broadcast. And it emphatically showed that Daniil Medvedev controlled the Balance of Power in his convincing 6-4, 6-2 win over Andy Murray, with a strong six percentage point advantage (24% to 18%).
And here’s a headline-grabbing stat for fans, players and coaches that the new data reveal: A player who spends more time in offense wins 68% of matches.
The BOP metric is dynamically calculated during every shot by proprietary software that analyses a range of data points including:
On average, ATP Tour players spend 22% of their time in offense, 22% in defence and 56% in neutral positions. If a player can shift the BOP by just two percentage points in his favour (e.g. 25% versus 23% for his opponent), his chance of winning the match is 64%.
Should the BOP power differential reach eight percentage points or greater, a player’s chance of winning the match increases to 72%
Balance of Power is just the first of several new data points TDI will be unveiling in coming months. Rolling out next will be a deeper dive into Balance of Power, measuring the ratio of points won from offensive and defensive positions.
After his dream run to the title in Indian Wells, the 2022 Sunshine Double is only getting better for Taylor Fritz at the Miami Open presented by Itau.
The American was made to work by qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin but used his trademark big serving to good effect on his way to a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 victory and reach the third round of the ATP Masters 1000 event at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday.
The 11th seed will have no interest in stopping there as he seeks to become the first man to win in both Indian Wells and Miami in the same year since Roger Federer in 2017. Playing with confidence after rising to a career-high No. 13 in the ATP Rankings, Fritz combined a solid ground game with his trademark big serving to oust Kukushkin despite dropping the second set in south Florida.
The American was particularly pleased with how his body held up in its first competitive test since his exertions in California. “Physically it was really good,” said Fritz after the match. “I was a little worried about my ankle. I have been definitely kind of holding back in practice the last couple of days, kind of just went once a day, took it easy.
“Honestly, today it felt great and I’m super happy with my tennis, the whole three sets. Even the set I lost I thought I played well. He was honestly too good when he was beating me. It was a really tough match. [I’m] happy to get through it.”
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It was a bright display from Kukushkin, who notched his first tour-level win of 2022 in the first round against Botic van de Zandschulp, but the World No. 159 ultimately lacked the weapons to consistently hurt the powerful American on Saturday.
An early break to love was enough for Fritz to secure the opening set as the No. 1 American stayed solid on serve, but Kukushkin fought admirably and took his chance by converting his first break point of the match at 6-5 in the second set to force a decider.
Despite the setback normal service resumed on the Fritz delivery in the third set, and Kukushkin’s lack of penetration in return games continued to give the American freedom to attack. Two breaks in the decider secured the win for Fritz as he extended his ATP Head2Head series lead over the Kazakh to 3-0.
Fritz’s final serving numbers told the story of the match, the American firing seven aces and winning 85 per cent (41/48) of points behind his first delivery, according to Infosys ATP Stats.
He will next face compatriot Tommy Paul, who battled hard for a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(3) victory over 23rd seed Karen Khachanov earlier on Saturday.
Paul’s straight-sets first-round victory over Benjamin Bonzi was his first main-draw win in Miami and, just like he did against Alexander Zverev in the second round in Indian Wells, the World No. 37 held his nerve against Khachanov to clinch victory via a deciding set tie-break.
Fritz and Paul’s two previous tour-level meetings both took place in 2021, with Fritz winning an October clash in St. Petersburg and Paul coming out on top in Stockholm in November. Fritz has been impressed with the way his friend’s game has also developed in recent months and expects a tough battle ahead.
“I think the conditions here are good for him,” said Fritz. “He’s probably one of the best movers on tour. These are very slow courts, [it is] very tough to put the ball away here.
“He’s going to be coming to net quite a bit and it’s never easy playing one of your best friends. But in the past, I have done well when playing my friends. It’s going to be a really tough match because he’s playing well.”
Also on Saturday, Miomir Kecmanovic continued to cause upsets at Masters 1000 level as he produced a top-class performance to brush aside World No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime with a 6-4, 6-2 victory and surge into the fourth round in Miami for the first time.
After equalling his career-best run at Indian Wells last week by beating Marin Cilic and Matteo Berrettini on his way to reaching the quarter-finals, Kecmanovic came out firing against Auger-Aliassime. The Serb looked settled following his straight-sets victory over former quarter-finalist Jack Sock in the first round, and he appeared to catch Auger-Aliassime cold as he extended his ATP Head2Head series lead over the Canadian to 2-0.
Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo notched their first win since the Australian Open on Saturday in Miami. The Croatian/Brazilian pairing won six ATP Tour titles from 2013-16 and are now playing their sixth event as a team this season.
They opened their campaign at the Miami Open presented by Itau with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen, saving four out of five break points in the contest. The duo dropped serve on a sudden-death point in the very first game, but held strong the rest of the way to advance to the second round.
The other four break points all came in the opening game of set two, when they escaped 0/40 to get on the board before breaking to love in the next game. That was part of a run of 10 straight points that set Dodig and Melo on course for a straightforward second set.
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They will next face Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, who upset fourth seeds John Peers and Filip Polasek, 6-2, 6-4, on Saturday.
The tournament’s second and third seeds started their respective campaigns with a pair of straight-sets victories. Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury got past Lloyd Glasspool and Michael Venus, 7-5, 6-4, while Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos were 6-2, 6-2 winners over Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan.
The only other seeded duo in action, eighth seeds Nicolas Mahut and Fabrice Martin, were eliminated by Edouard Roger-Vasselion and Austin Krajicek, 6-3, 6-4.
At the conclusion of Saturday’s play, the Round of 16 will be set in Miami.
Britain’s Andy Murray loses to Russian top seed Daniil Medvedev at the Miami Open, as Dan Evans and Heather Watson are also beaten.
Andy Murray had high praise for Daniil Medvedev before their clash at the Miami Open presented by Itau. The top seed showed why on Saturday.
Medvedev dispatched Murray 6-4, 6-2 to reach the fourth round at the season’s second ATP Masters 1000 event and take a 2-0 lead in the pair’s ATP Head2Head series. The 13-time tour-level titlist will next play 27th seed Cristian Garin or Spaniard Pedro Martinez.
“I think it was a great match. It’s never easy, first-round matches, even if you practise on the same courts for one or two months, it’s never going to be the same as a competitive tournament match,” Medvedev said in his post-match interview. “So I’m happy that I managed to have zero break points against me. I feel like I have some room for improvement, but it was a great match against an amazing player and I’m happy that I managed to go through.”
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It was a good start to the tournament for Medvedev, who must reach the semi-finals in Miami to retake the top spot in the ATP Rankings from Novak Djokovic on 4 April. The 26-year-old climbed to World No. 1 on 28 February before relinquishing it on Monday following the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
Murray recently announced that Ivan Lendl would be rejoining his team, and the former World No. 1 was in the Scot’s box inside Hard Rock Stadium. The crowd was on Murray’s side, frequently cheering his impressive shots, especially on big points.
But Medvedev was too solid from the baseline and on serve for the wild card to overcome. He did not face a break point in his one-hour, 30-minute victory.
“On the days when you serve good, your opponent doesn’t have this freedom to return, it helps you,” Medvedev said. “[In the] second set, the scoreline was easier, it was much tougher in the beginning, but when your opponent knows you’re probably going to get some aces and it’s not going to be easy for him to return, he gets pressure on his serve and many times that is what happens in close matches.”
Murray did not necessarily do anything wrong in the match, but he was unable to step into the court often enough to displace the top seed from his comfort zone. Medvedev appeared full of confidence in neutral rallies and never appeared under stress against the two-time Miami champion.
“Every opportunity I had I tried to take it, to go for it,” Medvedev said. “And there were a lot of moments when I was happy about my game.”