MIAMI – The Miami Open men’s draw is shaping up to be a battle of the defending champion and the young guns, as Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner all marched into the quarter-finals with convincing victories.
Medvedev, who beat Sinner in the 2023 final, earned a 7-6 (7-5), 6-0 win over Germany’s Dominik Koepfer on March 26 while top seed Alcaraz cruised past Italian Lorenzo Musetti 6-3, 6-3.
Second seed Sinner of Italy also moved into the last eight, beating Christopher O’Connell of Australia 6-4, 6-3.
Alcaraz, who is searching for the “Sunshine Double” after winning in Indian Wells, was too strong for 23rd seed Musetti although the Italian certainly contributed to a crowd-pleasing contest.
Stadium court erupted after a rally in the third game of the second set saw Musetti clip the ball between his legs, lobbing Alcaraz but the Spaniard returned it with a “tweener” only to lose the point to a deft volley at the net.
But overall, it was a comfortable match for Alcaraz, 20, whose all-round game looks in strong shape.
“I don’t know if this is the best game I’ve played,” he said. “But I feel great on court, I’m moving great, I am not injured and not thinking about my ankle any more... best feeling since summer.”
In the last eight, Alcaraz will face 11th-seeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who beat eighth-seeded Pole Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).
Medvedev, 28, made an unusually sloppy start on Stadium court, with a series of unforced errors, and found himself trailing 4-0 in the first-set tiebreak.
But having overturned that deficit, he went on to win all the remaining games as he showed that, despite his concerns over the rapid deterioration of balls on the hardcourt surface, he is comfortable with the conditions.
The Russian suggested that Koepfer had struggled to recover from the blow of seeing his tiebreak lead vanish.
“Sometimes it happens, when you lose the first set the way he lost it,” he said. Medvedev will next face Chilean Nicolas Jarry, who upset Norwegian seventh seed Casper Ruud 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.
Sinner trailed 1-3 in the first set against O’Connell, as the Australian cleverly mixed up his approach, asking a variety of questions of his Italian opponent.
He faced a potential double break at 0-30 but responded strongly to come back and take the set after 58 minutes.
The second set was more straightforward for the 22-year-old, who broke O’Connell’s first service game and then took care of business to wrap up the win.
Sinner will face Czech Tomas Machac, who eased into the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Italian Matteo Arnaldi.
In other tennis news, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic has ended his highly successful partnership with Croatian coach Goran Ivanisevic shortly before the clay season gets into full swing, the Serb announced on March 27.
Ivanisevic, who claimed the singles title at Wimbledon in 2001 after finishing runner-up in 1992, 1994 and 1998, joined Djokovic’s team in 2019 and helped the 36-year-old win nine Grand Slam titles. AFP, REUTERS
