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Britain’s Katie Boulter advanced to the 3rd-round of the Miami Open presented by Itaú when Brenda Fruhvirtova retired feeling ill, while other top seeds, Elena Rybakina, Zheng Qinwen, Maria Sakkari and Jelena Ostapenko also opened their respective campaigns with wins on Thursday.
I actually think it’s one of the toughest things to do. Halfway through the match I’m seeing her coaches telling her to pull and then she’s not, so obviously there’s a lot going on. One minute she’s struggling to put the ball in the court, and the next she’s running 10 shots side to side, so it’s a tough mental game. Katie Boulter
Boulter, the British No 1, who is seeded for the first time at a WTA 1000 event, received a 1st-round bye and was leading 7-6(5), 1-0 and 15-0 when Fruhvirtova, a 16-year-old wild-card, appeared to be struggling with the heat, and headed to her chair.
“It’s a tough situation,” Boulter said. “I felt like it was a match that I was getting into more and more.
“Obviously to win a match like that, I will take it, but I want her to get better. She’s a young talent and she’s going to do very well in the future.”
The young Czech, who is the younger sister of 18-year old Linda Fruhvirtova, had been feeling under the weather coming into the tournament, and had called for a doctor earlier in the match when she was leading by a break of serve at 5-4 in the opening set.
Boulter eventually took the set in the tiebreak, and had broken at the start of the second when Fruhvirtova called for the doctor again, and then decided she could not continue.
She is not the first player to struggle in the Miami heat and humidity this week, with Frenchman Arthur Cazaux collapsing on court during a qualifying match, while Matteo Berrettini looked close to fainting against Andy Murray on Wednesday.
Boulter had made a shaky start against Fruhvirtova, and admitted she found it hard to concentrate amid her opponent’s difficulties.
“I actually think it’s one of the toughest things to do,” said the No 24 seed afterwards. “Halfway through the match I’m seeing her coaches telling her to pull and then she’s not, so obviously there’s a lot going on. One minute she’s struggling to put the ball in the court, and the next she’s running 10 shots side to side, so it’s a tough mental game.
“For me, it was challenging today, and I probably wasn’t the kindest to myself, but we live and learn.”
Boulter’s best run in Miami means she is on course to claim the highest ranking of her career, with the live listing suggesting she is currently at No 26, which is one place ahead of her current WTA ranking.
She now faces a step up in class, though, as Beatriz Haddad Maia is waiting in the next round, where a win would push Boulter close to her next big target – a place in the top 20 of the rankings.
Haddad Maia, the 11th seed from Brazil, dropped the opening set to Diane Parry before rallying for a 3-6 6-1 6-4 win to reach the Miami 3rd-round for the 4th time, and the 3rd straight year.
It was the first victory for Haddad Maia over the Frenchwoman, who had won their other 2 meetings, both on clay.
World No 4 Elena Rybakina got past qualifier Clara Tauson in 3 sets in Miami on Thursday
© Megan Briggs/Getty Images
No 4 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan also pulled off a come-from-behind win in her opener on Thursday night, overcoming Danish qualifier Clara Tauson, 3-6 7-5 6-4.
Last year’s Miami Open runner-up needed 2 hours and 27 minutes to complete the turn-around against the Dane, who is ranked 91.
Rybakina, who has played the Miami Open 4 times in a row, has never lost before the 3rd-round at the tournament.
Looking back on her run to the final last year, Rybakina said: “Every match was a fight, so I expect the same for this week, and just go match by match.”
With 47 winners against Tauson, Rybakina has now hit over 45 winners for a 3rd time at WTA-1000 events in 2024, the only player to do so so far this year.
Picking up her 18th match-win of the season, the Kazakh is now tied with Emma Navarro for second place, with only World No 1 Iga Swiatek having more, at 20.
The 2023 Wimbledon champion had to work hard to hold off Tauson, a former junior No 1 who has struggled with injuries in recent years, back ailments hindering her 2022 season.
Rybakina took an early lead in the second set, but Tauson erased 2 set points at 5-4, broke for 5-5 and edged closer to her career-best victory by ranking, but the Kazakh used her booming game to reel off the next 8 points in a row and squeaked out the set, cracking a winning overhead to level the match.
Tauson refused to yield, and was twice a point away from a 3-1 lead in the third, but Rybakina got out of that hole and reached 2-2, then earned the critical break for a 3-2 lead with a passing winner.
Although the Dane remained close for the duration, Rybakina resisted being broken back, and eventually found a forehand winner on her 3rd match point to seal the win.
Rybakina will now take on another qualifier, American Taylor Townsend, in their first meeting.
Townsend picked up an upset win on Thursday, when she dispatched the No 25 seed from Belgium, Elise Mertens, 6-2 6-2.
“[Townsend is] a tricky opponent, we’ve never played against each other,” Rybakina said. “She’s a lefty; some good serves, and volleys she can do. As I said, I’ll try my best to recover and prepare for this match.”
Townsend produced a brilliant display, converting 4 of her 5 break points and weathering an untimely rain delay to advance.
“I just feel incredibly prepared. I’ve been working really hard,” Townsend said later. “Sometimes the work shows and manifests itself in matches, maybe for a set or a couple of games.
“I feel, like, now that I’ve been playing some weeks in a row, matches in a row, things have started to fall in place. The things I have been working on and training for months are finally coming to fruition on the court.”
Zheng Qinwen advanced after Katerina Siniakova was forced to retire due to a right thigh injury
© Michael Owens/Getty Images
No 7 seed Zheng Qinwen also advanced after Katerina Siniakova was forced to retire due to a right thigh injury, with the score standing at 4-6 6-3, 1-0, in favour of the Chinese in their evening match.
Siniakova won the tight opening set, but Zheng stormed through the second to level, when the Czech took an off-court medical time-out ahead the decider, but the former No 1 doubles player in the world could only make it through 6 more points before retiring.
Zheng will face World No 32 Victoria Azarenka from Belarus, who fended off 67th-ranked Peyton Stearns of the United States, 7-5 3-6 6-4.
Azarenka is a Miami Open 3-time champion, winning the title in2009, 2011, 2016.
Maria Sakkari had a comfortable win over Yuan Yue at the Hard Rock Stadium on Day 3 of the Miami Open
© Megan Briggs/Getty Images
Maria Sakkari, the 8th seed, showed she is back to her winning ways just days after losing the Indian Wells final on Sunday as she demolished China’s Yuan Yue, 6-2 6-2, to ease into the 3rd-round.
After briefly dipping out of the Top 10 earlier in the year, Sakkari has posted excellent results in the Sunshine Double, finishing as the runner-up at Indian Wells last week, and defeating No 3 Coco Gauff in the semi-finals before falling to Swiatek in the final.
Sakkari set that loss aside, and was all business after having failed at the first hurdle in her last two visits to Miami.
Yuan represented a potentially tricky first test for the Greek, having collected her first WTA Tour title in Austin last month, and following that up with a quarter-final run at Indian Wells, while she is now sitting at a career-high ranking of 37, just outside the Miami seedings.
Sakkari halted the rising Chinese player’s momentum, repeating her straight-sets win over Yuan from the first round of the 2023 Australian Open by winning 80% percent of her first-service points. and converting 5 of her 9 break points.
28-year-old Sakkari delivered a 79-minute masterclass, and will face Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska next, who was a 7-5 7-5 winner over Daria Saville from Australia.
Jelena Ostapenko had a tight encounter with Laura Siegemund but prevailed in straight sets
© Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
9th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia had a much more difficult task, but the 2017 Roland Garros champion eventually prevailed, 7-6(3) 6-4, over German qualifier Laura Siegemund.
Ostapenko led 5-3 in the opening set, and held 5 set points in that game, but she could not close it out.
She then garnered 2 more set points on Siegemund’s serve at 6-5, but the German fended those off as well.
The first set was settled in the tiebreak, where bold hitting off both wings gave Ostapenko another big lead at 6-3, and the Latvian at last converted on her 8th set point to wrap up the opener after 72 minutes.
Siegemund also fought back from a break down in the second, but Ostapenko took control in the latter stages of that set, reeling off the last 3 games of the match.
Ostapenko will now take on No 22 seed Anna Kalinskaya in the 3rd-round, which will be another tough test since the Russian has won both of their previous clashes, including in Dubai earlier this year.
In other 2nd-round action, Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina saved a match point, and came back from a set down to topple former World No 1 Caroline Wozniacki, 5-7 7-5 6-4.
Trailing 2-5 in the second set, Kalinina appeared to be heading for the exit, but, with nothing to lose, she came out swinging her racket to break the 33-year old Dane as she served for the match.
The danger was far from over for the Ukrainian, though, who faced a match point on her own serve, but stayed alive with a fearless forehand winner to cut the deficit to 5-4.
Kalinina ended up winning 5 games in a row to bag the second set, and, with the momentum now in her corner, the 27-year-old Ukrainian poured on the pressure in the third as she nosed ahead 5-3.
The Dane did not go down without a fight as she survived 3 match points for the hold, leaving Kalinina to serve for the match, and she needed 4 match points to complete the come-back, securing the win on her 3rd ace of the contest.
Next up for Kalinina is World No 2 Aryna Sabalenka or Paula Badosa, who meet on when the Belarusian plays for the first time since the tragic news on Monday that her former boyfriend Konstantin Koltsov had died.
The former professional ice hockey player’s apparent suicide has sent a shockwave through the Miami Open, with players rallying to support Sabalenka.
Adding more drama to the 2nd-round match, Sabalenka is going up against Badosa, her best friend on tour.
In other Day 3 results, Madison Keys, the 17th-seeded American, who has never advanced past the quarter-finals in 12 previous attempts in Miami, dispatched Russian teenager, Diana Shnaider, 6-2 6-4, to set up a meeting with Wang Xinyu, after the Chinese upset another Russian, 16th-seeded Veronika Kudermetova, 6-3 6-2; while Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan upset Liudmila Samsonova, the 13th seed from Russia, 6-1 4-6 6-3, to face Belgian Greet Minnen, who was a 7-5 6-1 winner over Lesia Tsurenko.
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