Britain’s Emma Raducanu is producing the sort of form that won her the US Open title in 2021 at the Miami Open presented by Itaú, demolishing McCartney Kessler in the opening set before the American retired in the second.
It’s never easy when you’re playing someone that you suspect there might be something wrong with. You need to just try and stay focused and not let up because in those situations it’s really difficult to control your side of the court. I think I did that really well. I practiced really well earlier today, and I’m glad that it was able to show in my tennis. Emma Raducanu
Raducanu has now won 3 matches in a row on tour for the first time since last year’s Championships at Wimbledon, emphatically backing up her big win over No 8 seed Emma Navarro on Friday, and advancing to the Last 16 with a 6-1, 3-0, RET win over Kessler after 45 minutes.
“I’m very happy, obviously, to be in this position,” Raducanu said after her latest win. “It’s never the way you necessarily want to win, but I think I did a really good job to stay focused during the match.
“It’s been an incredibly difficult few years for me. I don’t think I’m necessarily out of the woods – I’m still figuring things out.
“I’m just happy with this week, how I’ve been able to leave things off the court, go on the court with a pretty clear head, and fight for every point.”
Kessler is a rising American who won the title in Hobart, but Raducanu broke her serve all 4 times, and won 29 of 43 first-set points before the World No 48 threw in the towel at 0-3 down in the second, citing a lower back injury.
“It’s never easy when you’re playing someone that you suspect there might be something wrong with,” Raducanu said. “You need to just try and stay focused and not let up because in those situations it’s really difficult to control your side of the court. I think I did that really well.
“I practiced really well earlier today, and I’m glad that it was able to show in my tennis.”
Raducanu next plays another American, 17th-seeded Amanda Anisimova, who ended the 13-match winning streak of World No 6 Mirra Andreeva later on Sunday night.
Another win by Raducanu would surpass her career-best result in a WTA 1000, after reaching that stage on 4 previous occasions.
“[Anisimova and Andreeva] are both top players, both have won [WTA 1000 titles] this season,” Raducanu said, before she knew who her next opponent would be. “Both are in amazing form. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult match for me.”
Raducanu goes into the match having won her only previous meeting against Anisimova, a 6-3 7-5 victory in the 2nd round of this year’s Australian Open.
Amanda Anisimova snapped Mirra Andreeva’s 13-match winning streak at the Miami Open on Sunday
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Anisimova upset Andreeva with a gripping 7-6(5) 2-6 6-3 win in a showdown between two of this season’s top contenders, the American outlasting the 17-year old Russian in a gruelling 2-hour, 49-minute battle.
The win marked the 10th Top 10 victory of Anisimova’s career, who won the first WTA 1000 event of the year, the Qatar TotalEnergies Open in Doha.
Then it was Andreeva who dominated the next two WTA 1000s, winning Dubai and Indian Wells back-to-back, and she was eyeing a shot at becoming the first teenager to pull off the Sunshine Double.
Anisimova, though, found patches of her Doha form to keep the surging Andreeva at bay in Miami.
Currently ranked a career-high at 17, the 23-year-old Floridian is now into the round of 16 at her home tournament for the very first time in her career.
Sunday’s match was a back-and-forth affair from the get-go, and when Andreeva served for the first set at 5-4, she was broken to love before Anisimova eventually took it in the breaker.
The young Russian stormed back to dominate the second set, and, in the decider, held 2 break points to take an early 2-0 lead, but Anisimova’s aggressive play took over, and she slammed down a strong serve and a winning overhead to erase both chances, and held on for 1-1.
That paid dividends in the following game, where Anisimova blasted to 0-40 and eventually broke for 2-1, which proved to be the decisive break of the final set.
Andreeva held 2 more break points in Anisimova’s next service game, but once again, the American deployed two of her most thunderous shots to fend them off, a backhand crosscourt winner and a forehand winner, respectively, and she moved to the win from there.
Iga Swiatek got her serve on song to beat Elise Mertens and reach the Last 16 at a WTA 1000 for a record-breaking 25th time
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Earlier on Sunday, Iga Swiatek got the better of Elise Mertens to record a Last 16 milestone, reaching the round of 16 for the 25th consecutive time at this level.
The 23-year old Pole advanced with a 7-6(2) 6-1 defeat of the No 27 seed from Belgium, but it was not a straightforward ride.
From 5-2 up in the first set, she was pegged back to 5-5 by Mertens, who won her 9th career title in Singapore last month.
Swiatek, though, took control by dominating the ensuing tiebreak, then rolled through the second set to a 1 hour 49 minute win.
“In the first set, my serve wasn’t working perfectly,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “I’m glad I was patient enough to just work for it, and in the second set I felt much better.”
Swiatek will bid to reach her 2nd Miami quarter-final against No 22 seed Elina Svitolina, who came through 6-2 3-6 6-2 over the 15th seed, Karolina Muchova, from Czechia.
The Ukrainian now owns a 3-0 record against Muchova, having also defeated her twice in 2019.
Swiatek leads her head-to-head against Svitolina, 2-1, including their only previous hard-court meeting in the 3rd round of Dubai last year.
19-year old Alexandra Eala upset reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys in the 3rd round of the Miami Open on Sunday
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19-year old Alexandra Eala from the Philippines, who trains at the Rafael Nadal Academy in Mallorca, also scored a massive upset, beating reigning Australian Open champion, Madison Keys, 6-4 6-2, after an hour and 27 minutes.
Keys held the edge over Eala in every respect, with 98 WTA 1000 match-wins to her credit, and ranked World No 5, some 135 spots higher than the Filipino.
The relatively unknown left-handed wild card, however, won 8 of the first 9 points, 4 of the first 6 games, and ultimately, the first set.
Eala stubbornly held her ground, bravely anchored to the baseline, and withstood Keys’ power, hanging in the long rallies and waiting for the American to crumble.
Despite two visits from the trainer, and a medical timeout for what appeared to be a leg injury, Eala kept her energy up, and the pressure on.
The most critical point of the match was Keys’ double-fault on Eala’s 3rd break-point opportunity as the American was serving to level the third set at 3-all.
In the end, the numbers were telling, with Keys finishing with 51 unforced errors, against only 22 winners, while Eala was more efficient, with 13 winners and only 21 miscues, and she broke Keys 6 times.
On clinching the upset win, Eala jumped for joy with tears in her eyes, fist-pumping her way to the stands, and vigorously hugging members of her team.
“I don’t think I’ve had the time to process everything that’s happened,” Eala told reporters. “So I’m taking it step by step, and just focusing on what I need to do next. It’s a big thing to take in, and I’m so super proud of what I was able to accomplish, but it definitely fuels me more.
“I know and it’s in my mind that I have a next match, but I need to stop, and I need to recognize that what I did today was really amazing.”
She is the first Filipino player in the Open Era to score a WTA Top 10 win since the ranking system came into being in 1975, and the first player ranked outside the Top 100 to reach the Last 16 in a WTA 1000 event this season.
On Monday, Eala will take on Spain’s Paula Badosa for a spot in the quarter-finals.
The No 10 seed was a 6-3 7-6(3) winner over Denmark’s Clara Tauson, but appeared to suffer from a back injury that has recently plagued her, calling for a medical timeout early in the second set and, at the match’s conclusion, directing someone to carry her bags off the court.
Jessica Pegula edged past Anna Kalinskaya in a 3rd-set breaker to reach a Last 16 encounter with Marta Kostyuk
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Pegula needed a final-set breaker to squeak past the No 32 seed, Anna Kalinskaya, 7-6(3) 2-6 7-6(2), and reached the Miami Open round of 16 for the 5th straight year.
Although the American holds a 3-0 head-to-head lead over the Russian, she has needed 3 sets to accomplish each one of those wins.
For a spot in the quarters, Pegula will play Marta Kostyuk, the 23rd seed from Ukraine, who was a 6-2 6-1 winner over another Russian, Anna Blinkova.
Kostyuk delivered an aggressive masterclass on Sunday, needing just 58 minutes to defeat Blinkova.
