Miami has had no shortage of entertainment this year, and we haven’t even gotten close to most of the premier matches we should expect in the second half of the tournament.
Alcaraz vs Paul
First up we have a rematch of last year’s round of 32 match in Montreal. Paul was actually the victor last summer 6-7(4), 7-6(7), 6-3. This will be their second head to head meeting overall and feels like the first clash of elite players this week on the mens side.
Alcaraz obliterated Bagnis 6-0, 6-2 in the round of 64, and the scoreline is all the analysis you need. He started off his round of 32 match against Lajovic with another bagel, and was cruising right from where he left off. The forehand was flying, the serve percentage was high, and the drop shots were landing when he wanted them. The second set felt like it was going to go the same way as the first, Lajovic played a nice point at 1-1, 30-40, but Alcaraz guessed right, hit a sweet lob, and then answered Lajovic’s excellent and harder than it looks backhand overhead with a ridiculous forehand.
From here, the rest of the match felt like a formality. They traded a few low stakes holds, with Lajovic teetering on the verge of throwing in the towel at times. Finally at 5-4 Alcaraz was serving for the match, and suddenly he blinked. An extremely loose game with three backhand errors and a slightly mishit forehand put away and the match was even again. Again they traded holds and headed to a tiebreak. The tiebreak was straightforward, and though it took a few match points Alcaraz showed up when it mattered and put the match away with a backhand winner.
Tommy Paul has unsurprisingly had a harder road getting to the round of 16. Marc Andrea Huesler gave him everything he could handle in the round of 64, taking him pretty deep into the third set and making Paul put him away, but Huesler is still a player at a level where a professional performance should be able to dispatch him on most days, and Tommy has been plenty professional this year.
The round of 32 offered the always complicated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, but Paul put together an even stronger performance. The match was even for the first five games until a Paul break in the sixth after some long exchanges without much drama. He immediately followed it up by going down 0-40 and gifting the advantage away. Fokina then gifted the break back again after squandering a 40-0 lead on his own serve and Paul served out the set 6-3. This weirdness continued into the second set, as Paul broke immediately, gave it back when serving at 3-2, and then turned it back on at 4-5 and won three straight games to close it out 7-5.
I don’t exactly expect this match to go Paul’s way but it will be the first true look at how Alcaraz is playing this week. He is in form, and fitness hasn’t been a question for him, but he has played a ton of tennis over the last four weeks or so. The slight hiccup was interesting but it’s really tough to read much from it, it’s tough to analyze four swings, but may be something to keep an eye on if he continues to struggle to close out matches.
Prediction: Alcaraz 7-5, 6-3
Fritz vs Rune
Fritz beat Emilio Nava in the round of 64, a wild card that has been receiving wild cards for quite some time now with really no results to show for them. In the round of 32 he had a ninth head to head meeting with Denis Shapovalov. This used to be a problem matchup for Fritz, as he lost four of their first five meetings, (in particular their meeting at the 2020 US Open was one of the worst chokes I’ve ever seen in the sport) but has seemingly found the formula. Though for those that follow Shapo, the formula this year has basically been show up and you’re good. It’s a real testament to the amount of talent that Denis is wasting that this was an incredibly boring match that ended up being a 6-4, 6-4 victory. It could be argued that Fritz is the less talented player of the two, but again, there is something to be won on the tour just by showing up with a very professional performance.
Rune has had a nice stretch so far, beating an in form Fucsovics in a medium entertaining match, and then steamrolling Schwartzman in the round of 32, another player who has not been performing well in the slightest. Schwartzman has been in a real funk, and I really would love to see him back at his best, sooner than later. But until Schwartzman is at his best any top 25 or so player than runs into him is going to have their way with him, and that is what Rune did. When Schwartzman isn’t at his sharpest his serve is a huge liability, and he doesn’t return well enough to compensate.
This leaves us with the best matchup by far out of these six players, with Fritz and Rune both being in some good form and it will be an intriguing matchup. Analyzing the games it’s not as much as a contrast of styles as one would initially assume, but the games mesh interestingly enough. Rune is excellent on return, and good on serve, Fritz is very strong on serve, and decent enough on return. This should leave us with a very even matchup on all sides and it feels like a tossup. I lean slightly toward Fritz due to the experience and consistency that he has shown the last year.
Prediction: Fritz 6-3, 4-6, 6-3
Van de Zandschulp vs Ruusuvuori
Just when I start to write off Ruud he snaps back to some competence. Beating Ivashka (a week after Ivashka took Medvedev to a third set) he looked significantly more like his old self. Maybe it’s something about Miami. This is where he started to really find some strong form last season as well. He never looks outrageous or dominating out on the court, but he usually looks pretty sharp, and the fact that he was looking pretty sharp on the forehand and serve is a very good sign for someone who is defending so many points over the next two months. Botic Van de Zandschulp lead the head to head 2-1 in this matchup heading into things. The match started out with a some routine holds, a 10 minute Botic service game at 1-2 was the most interesting development through the first 7 games. In the eighth game Ruud was able to hit a pretty sweet lob on the run to generate a break point, capitalized on it, and served out the set 6-3.
The second set was extremely lacking in tension, with both players holding fairly easily until Ruud served to stay in the set at 4-5, and played an incredibly tight 12 minute game including this gem of a point:
Van De Zandchulp was able to grab the game a few points later on a rally that is way too long to post and suddenly things were even.
Ruud characteristically took a lengthy break off the court between the second and third set, but unlike his match with Brooksby at the Australian Open, he came out looking good and immediately grabbed a break with a huge forehand winner. He spent the next several games dominating the rallies between the two players and generating near a dozen break points but missing a shocking amount of put away and gimme balls. At 3-2 they played a super tense game where again Ruud missed three or four balls that should have ended the point, and instead of finding himself up a double break and possibly even 5-0 the match was level. After again escaping a multitude of break points Ruud blinked while serving to stay in the match and Botic prevailed 6-4 in the third.
Ruusuvuori had a really tough match against Roberto Bautista Agut in the round of 64, and after navigating that was rewarded with playing a surging Taro Daniel, which is absolutely not a joke, and who is in seriously impressive form so far this season, notching some nice shiny wins over Ruud, Berrettini, and Zverev already this year. The Bautista Agut match was tight but it seems like a good matchup for the Finn, as he wants to grind just as much as Bautista Agut does. Taro Daniel isn’t drastically different in style, but the strong form does make a difference.
Daniel started the match looking impressive, and grabbed the early break after hitting some sweet down the line backhands, going up 2-1. Ruusuvuori was unfazed, and roared back winning 5/6 games to win the set 6-3. My analysis is this was a slugfest that resembled a brutal drilling session from the baseline. Good hitting but lots of straightforward long rallies. Check it out if you like that stuff.
The second set was closet throughout, with Daniel finding his momentum on serve again, but after neither man pressured the other on serve Ruusuvuori came out on top in the tiebreak, 7-3.
Ruusuvuori has been coming on stronger and stronger every year for about three years now, and if he keeps playing like this I will have to rethink my “Kirkland Sinner” nickname for him. Ruud dominated the rallies and most of the match against Van de Zandschulp, he just beat himself on putaways. After seeing Daniel beat Ruud recently and with Ruud’s scratchy form in 2023 I’m favoring Ruusuvuori to come through.
Prediction: Ruusuvuori 6-3, 7-6
Sinner vs Rublev
Sinner ran through Laslo Djere in the round of 64, and then played Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 32 in a Dimitrov special. Dimitrov looked incredible, and graceful throughout, showed a high level, and crumbled in the worst moments. Early on he was striking the ball beautifully:
He was also losing. Sinner picked up the break due to a loose Dimitrov game at 2-2 and played mistake free, clean tennis through the rest of the set, picking up another break at 5-3 just for good measure. Dimitrov showed some great fight to start the second set, taking advantage of a Sinner dip to snag a break, then fighting back from down 0-40 on his own serve, playing a fantastic point at 30-40, to consolidate the break.
Unfortunately the very next game Sinner stepped in a took the break back without very much struggle. Then suddenly Dimitrov broke back again to take a 3-2 lead. The level started to raise significantly somewhere near this point in the match. Then after a long back and forth game, Dimitrov double faulted on break point and things went back to even at 3-3. They held back and forth until Dimitrov was broken serving to stay in the match at 4-5. It sadly was a Dimitrov special, but the tennis was very high level, and you shouldn’t let the scoreline deceive you into thinking this was straightforward for Sinner.
Rublev beat JJ Wolf in the round of 64 and followed that up by drubbing Miomir Kecmanovic in the round of 32. Don’t forget that just last year Kecmanovic played Alcaraz in the quarters here and took him to a third set tiebreak in one of the matches of the year. This is a fantastic sign for Rublev, even if Kecmanovic’s form has dipped a bit, to take him to the woodshed in a place he has shown an extremely high level in the past. JJ Wolf is a nice enough pelt to grab as well, he has been having a good season. The elite opposition starts here, and it’s here where things can deteriorate rapidly for Rublev. If he takes the form that he took in so far he can win this match, but I worry that he may put too much pressure on himself against the elite competition and the moment things start to slide away from him wilt away.
Prediction: Sinner 7-6, 6-2