Two and a half months on, it is hard to imagine how life could get better for the former world No 1. 

On Sunday, Medvedev defeated Jannik Sinner, who can most certainly play a good level, to win the Miami Open for the first time. It was the Russian’s fourth title from a remarkable sequence of five consecutive hard-court finals, beginning against Sinner in Rotterdam and continuing through Doha and Dubai, before a lone defeat to Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells a fortnight ago. 

Over the course of seven extraordinary weeks, Medvedev has won 24 out of 25 matches across three different continents. Ranked 12th after falling to Sebastian Korda at Melbourne Park, where he had previously reached two consecutive finals, the 27-year-old is now back up to fourth and leading the ATP race to Turin. It has been some turnaround. 

“It’s the best start of the season I have ever had,” said Medvedev after a 7-5, 6-3 victory earned him his biggest title since the 2021 US Open.

“This year, Australia was not good enough, so I’m happy that I managed to turn the other part around, which is for sure Rotterdam and on.”

What a ride it has been. Over the past couple of months, Medvedev has been by turns bullish, brilliant and brash – and sometimes all three at once. He has thrilled with his singular blend of big-serving, dogged defence and long-limbed counter-attacking. He spoke touchingly of his four-month-old daughter in Rotterdam, and made plain his deep (and mutually held) respect for Andy Murray in Qatar. 

In Dubai, Medvedev ended Novak Djokovic’s unbeaten start to the season, denying the Serb a 21st straight win. His frequently hilarious asides about the conditions in Indian Wells – “I’m going to pee as slow as this court is,” Medvedev told chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani during his third-round win over Ilya Ivashka, “the court is slow, so I go slow” – brought a welcome dose of irreverence to the sunshine swing.

On a brutally hot and humid afternoon in south Florida that did Sinner few favours after he had woken up feeling “a little bit sick”, Medvedev showcased other qualities. He was resilient, quickly shrugging off the disappointment he must have felt when, having failed to convert five break point opportunities in the fourth game, he was subsequently broken himself after serving three double faults. 

Medvedev was also characteristically perceptive. Sinner, sick but also no doubt feeling the after-effects of an epic semi-final win over Carlos Alcaraz, frequently appeared to be struggling to catch his breath in the early stages, particularly during the longer baseline exchanges. It was a sign of vulnerability that Medvedev, who had won each of his previous five encounters with the Italian, was quick to spot and exploit. As Sinner served to consolidate his advantage, a 21-shot rally early in the game completely knocked the stuffing out of him. A break soon followed and, at the next change of ends, the Italian summoned the trainer, who administered some medication.

“With the heat, when you run a lot, it gets a little bit worse and worse,” said Sinner, whose efforts to attack the net, which intensified after he was broken early in the second set, were hampered by a first-serve success rate of just 56%. 

“Obviously, the first half an hour we played in the sun also. 

“When the rallies were long today, I was struggling the point or two points after.”

With Sinner labouring, Medvedev steadfastly refused to give the 21-year-old the pace on which he thrives. It was an approach that reaped dividends, never more so than when a floated return of serve drew the last of several misses from Sinner as he served to stay in the first set. 

“I can see throughout all the matches that we played that my shots don’t let him completely expose his game, which is hitting winners all over the place,” said Medvedev, who has been further buoyed by news that Wimbledon has lifted its ban on Russians and Belarusians.

“Like the match against Carlos, the match against [Andrey] Rublev, [Emil] Ruusuvuori, he was just blasting the ball past his opponents, doing unbelievable winners. 

“Somehow, my ball doesn’t let him do it, or maybe I’m reading his game a little bit better, so I’m pushing him more to the error.”

Sinner, who was beaten in his first Miami final two years ago by Hubert Hurkacz, acknowledged that he finds Medvedev a tricky customer.

“Against Daniil I never won,” said the Italian. “It’s always going to be a tough, tough challenge for me to play against him, for sure. 

“Every player has this one or two players where you don’t feel that comfortable with. He’s for sure one of mine. I mean, he’s also one of the best players in the world, no?”

That much is beyond doubt.

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On Saturday, Kvitova defeated Elena Rybakina 7-6 (16-14), 6-2 to win the Miami Open for the first time, ending the Kazakh’s 13-match unbeaten run and denying her the “sunshine double” of Indian Wells and Miami. 

Kvitova’s biggest title win in five years, against an opponent in blistering form and at a tournament where she had never previously been beyond the quarter-finals, may be received with surprise in some quarters. Yet a result like this has been coming for a while now.

The Czech first showed signs of a resurgence when she ended a title drought of more than a year on the grass courts of Eastbourne last summer. Another strong showing at the All England Club appeared possible, but Kvitova fell to Paula Badosa in the third round. It was a similar story two months later, when an inspired run to the Cincinnati final was followed by a sobering defeat to Jessica Pegula at the US Open. 

Yet Kvitova has always marched to the beat of her own drum, and she continued to post results that suggested something big might be just around the corner. She defeated Rybakina in Adelaide earlier this year and saved four match points to gain a measure of vengeance against Pegula last month in Indian Wells, where she was a quarter-finalist for the first time in seven years. In Miami, where she has thrived on the quicker conditions this year, that big breakthrough finally arrived in the shape of a ninth WTA 1000 crown and a 30th career title, second only to Venus Williams among active players. 

“I love the game,” said Kvitova. “I’ve had a lot of ups, that’s always been the motivation to have them again. I think this is the best feeling what you can have, winning a final as I did today. That’s [what] I love the most, the winning feeling of it.”

For the past month, that winning feeling has belonged to Rybakina, who claimed her biggest title since last summer’s Wimbledon victory at Indian Wells, defeating Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka, the top two players in the world, along the way. Against Kvitova, though, the world No 7 must have felt like she was playing in front of a mirror, the first-strike tennis that is her métier reflected right back at her. It looked that way from the outside, too, the pair matching each other serve for devastating serve, bullet return for bullet return.

Predictably, rallies were at a premium. The first exchange of any notable length arrived in the ninth game, Kvitova prising a backhand error from Rybakina on the 10th shot of a meaty back-and-forth to bring up three break points. Fittingly, it also brought up the most notable moment of what had, up to that point, been a rather prosaic spectacle, Rybakina missing a first serve before another brief rally ended with her drilling a backhand long. Yet things are rarely straightforward where Kvitova is concerned, and in the next game Rybakina caught the Czech at her feet with a deep return to convert her first break point of the match. 

With an improbable exchange of breaks concluded, a tiebreak that had always seemed inevitable quickly came around. That prospect will have held few fears for Rybakina who, remarkably, had won all seven of her previous tiebreaks this year. But there is little that Kvitova hasn’t seen in her time on the tour and, over the course of the titanic 22-minute struggle that ensued, she was sustained by the knowledge that all such streaks end eventually.

“Before our final I read, yesterday, that Elena didn’t lose a tiebreak yet this season,” said Kvitova. “So, you know, I had a break up. I was like, ‘OK, good. I’m going to serve it out.’ And boom, it was a tiebreak. I was like, ‘Oh, very nice. What are you going to do now?’ 

“But I was telling myself that she has to lose, at some point, one tiebreak in the season. So I was going to try.”

Try she did. Serving with intelligence, variety and precision, and holding her nerve brilliantly to stave off five set points, Kvitova finally sealed the set on the 30th point of the breaker –which was also her own fifth set point. It was a desperate tug-of-war, the momentum constantly shifting back and forth, every moment potentially pivotal. 

Arguably the most significant passage came when, to Kvitova’s evident dismay, Rybakina clipped the back edge of the baseline as she fended off the Czech’s second set point. Many a match has turned on less, and hearts were in mouths among her vocal supporters when Kvitova, whose scepticism about the electronic line call was palpable even after it was replayed on the big screen, went on to net a forehand. That brought up a second set point for Rybakina, but Kvitova found a wonderful, swinging southpaw second serve to set up an easy winner.  

“For sure the tiebreak decided today all the match,” said Kvitova. “I think it was the longest one I ever played in my life, and it was like, if I didn’t serve [well], I couldn’t be there.

“It was like one mini break and then [an]other one, and we just kept going on the serves. I totally lost the control of who is serving, who is not, when we are changing sides and so on. 

“It was really the hardest tiebreak I played probably.”

After coming out on the wrong end of such a tight set in what was her 12th match in 22 days, it was perhaps inevitable that Rybakina would experience a lull. Kvitova was quick to press home the advantage, rifling a backhand return winner to break for 2-0 before leaning across the net to put away a short ball as she held to consolidate her advantage. Rybakina fruitlessly questioned the legality of the shot, but it was to be her last real gesture of defiance. It has nonetheless been an extraordinary run by the Kazakh, especially after a faltering start to the tournament as she adjusted to the conditions and an understandable battle against fatigue.

“It was a really tough first set, and I think it made a big difference starting the second,” said Rybakina. “I’m just happy with two weeks overall. Not so happy with the second set, of course, but I think it’s still a positive one month here in the US.”

That sentiment will be shared by Kvitova, who will return to the top 10 on Monday as a result of her efforts over the past month. Could she also return to the grand slam winners’ circle in due course? On this form, it is not out of the question. Once again, Wimbledon promises to be interesting.

The post Kvitova thwarts Rybakina to win Miami Open appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Earlier this month in Indian Wells, where Rybakina won her first WTA 1000 title, she achieved the rare distinction of beating the top two in consecutive rounds, dismissing Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals before avenging her defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in January’s Australian Open final. On Thursday night, the Kazakh completed a clean sweep of victories over the top three, defeating Jessica Pegula 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 to reach the final of the Miami Open for the first time. 

Rybakina, who has now won 13 straight matches, stands on the brink of becoming only the fifth woman to complete the “sunshine double” of Indian Wells and Miami, a feat that would put her in illustrious company. Since Indian Wells became part of the women’s tour in 1989, only Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka and Iga Swiatek have won both titles in the same year. All are former No 1s and multiple grand slam champions. 

If she is to join them, Rybakina will first need to find a way past another future Hall of Famer in Petra Kvitova, who ended Sorana Cirstea’s brilliant sunshine stretch with a 7-5, 6-4 victory on Friday. Kvitova, who recovered from 5-2 down in the opening set, denying the Romanian two set points with a pair of big forehands, was a straight-sets winner over Rybakina when the pair last met, three months ago in Adelaide. Rybakina, who won their only other meeting, in Ostrava last year, knows it won’t be easy.

“I played against Petra in the beginning of the year and she played really well, but it was much faster courts there,” said Rybakina. 

“I think it’s going to be different [when] I play against her again, but for sure it’s a lot physically, because here the courts are quite slow, especially after rain. When it’s that humid, it’s not easy.”  

Having racked up 11 wins in 20 days, the auspices are nonetheless encouraging for Rybakina. She has dealt well with the fatigue that afflicted her following the quick turnaround from Indian Wells, and will face Kvitova well rested after completing her rain-interrupted semi-final a day earlier than the 32-year-old Czech, who has been playing catch-up ever since her midweek meeting with Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova was rained off. 

Rybakina has rarely been at her best tennis in Miami, but she has shown admirable tenacity and resourcefulness. She came through a pair of tough three-setters in the early rounds, battling past Anna Kalinskaya before saving a match point against Paula Badosa, and while her trademark consistency on serve has proved elusive at times, her ace count has been in double figures in every round. The last player to hit 10 or more aces across five straight matches at the same event was Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2016. Even more impressive, though, has been Rybakina’s ablity to come up with those big serves at the moment of greatest need. 

“In these important moments like 30-30, 30-40 or something like this, I was serving [an] ace,” said Rybakina after her quarter-final win over Italy’s Martina Trevisan. “So I think it’s just important to find these moments and to push, and for now [I’m] doing well even being not super fresh.” 

Timely aggression was certainly a key theme against Pegula, who broke three times in the opening set and twice served for it. On each occasion, Rybakina stuck to her guns, commanding the rallies with her forehand and making her way into the net whenever the opportunity arose. It was a similar story in the second set, where the Kazakh trailed 4-2 before reeling off four straight games.

“I started [to become] a bit more aggressive, because I knew that if it’s going to go to the third set, it’s going to be much more difficult,” said Rybakina. “So I maybe risked a bit more, even in the end of the second set.”

It is a philosophy Kvitova shares. The Czech looked to be in a deep hole after hooking a backhand wide in the sixth game to go a break down against Cirstea. High on confidence after the brilliant win over Sabalenka that propelled her to her first WTA 1000 semi-final for a decade, Cirstea consolidated the advantage with a stunning forehand winner and an ace, and in Kvitova’s next service game she stood within two points of the set at 0-30. 

But the two-time Wimbledon champion, continuing a period of resurgence that began when she reached the final in Cincinnati last August, came out swinging, forcing her way back into the game with a flurry of big forehands before sealing it with an ace. More big hitting denied Cirstea two set points as she served for the set at 40-15, and suddenly the contest turned on its head, an early break in the second set handing Kvitova an advantage she would not relinquish.

“I have to say she played quite well,” said Cirstea. “Love thirty, 5-2, she served really good there. It was new balls, it was very quick. Every time we had new balls, she was swinging more. It was very hard to control.”

Now Kvitova must face a kindred spirit, a player happy to fight fire with fire.

Should Rybakina prevail, she will rise to a career-high ranking of sixth. More significantly, she will also move to the top of the WTA race rankings, perhaps offering a truer reflection of where she currently stands in the global pecking order.

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If Fritz, the big-serving American world No 10, was under any illusions about the scale of the challenge as he met the human whirlwind that is Carlos Alcaraz for the first time, they were dispelled after the first two minutes of their Miami Open quarter-final. That was all the time Alcaraz needed to snatch an early break by pouncing on a short second serve to slot away a precise backhand return winner.

Fritz, one of the most accomplished servers in men’s tennis, is unaccustomed to such indignities. Like Alcaraz, the big Californian had previously failed to hold just twice at the tournament. Even so, another reality check was not slow in coming. 

In his next service game, Fritz toiled for eight sinew-stretching minutes to secure a first hold. It was a miniature masterpiece, full of superb shot-making from both men, with no quarter given and the baseline exchanges played at a ferocious pace. As Alcaraz showcased the full range of his repertoire, Fritz was bullied, battered and finessed into all corners of the court until, finally, after surviving five deuces, he conjured a magical topspin lob – his second of the game – to get on the scoreboard. 

A high bar had been established and, for the remainder of the set, Fritz was forced to play at the top of his game merely to stay in touch. It made for a compelling spectacle and, although Alcaraz pressed home his advantage to seal the opener, Fritz had every reason to feel positive going into the second. Instead, history repeated itself, some monstrous ball-striking from Alcaraz ensuring the American paid the price for an early double-fault. Broken to love, Fritz would never again be in serious contention.  

“He came out really hot,” said Fritz following his 6-4, 6-2 defeat. “I got the hold, but I was like, ‘Wow, if this is the level, then this is going to be really tough.’

“But I felt like that wasn’t actually the level. He did come out extremely hot and played that game really good, but I felt like I settled in after that. 

“For the rest of the set, I was in some service games, and I was holding pretty comfortably. But there were a lot of shots that I hit to him that I was expecting to be safe on, that I got punished on.

“For how young he is, he just has all the tools. He can come to net, he can drop shot you, he can lob you, he’s incredibly fast, he has all the power, his forehand is good, his backhand is good. It’s very rare to see someone so young so developed in their game, and not really have anything that they need to work on so much. 

“He has tons of different ways to play, and he can incorporate tons of different game plans to play different players, because he has so many tools to win a match.”

The Spaniard, the champion in Indian Wells earlier this month and now two wins away from defending the Miami Open title he won against Casper Ruud last year, has yet to drop a set over the sunshine stretch, a level of dominance eclipsed only by six-time champion Novak Djokovic. If he is to hold on to the No 1 ranking he reclaimed from Djokovic with his win in Indian Wells, Alcaraz must retain the title. To judge by Fritz’s appraisal of the Spaniard’s talents, which he suggested are more difficult to contain than even those of Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, there is every possibility he will do so – a semi-final meeting with Jannik Sinner notwithstanding.

“The level of the first three games was absolutely unbearable,” said Fritz. “He was hitting clean winners off of 110-mile-an-hour second serves [that] I was hitting into his body. I’m stepping up and crushing backhands cross, and he’s going open-stance backhand line winners off of that.

“That wasn’t the level for the rest of the match. I was able to settle in much more, and he wasn’t doing that the whole match. But he obviously possesses that level, and for those first couple of games, it was pretty overwhelming.

“I definitely felt like I had more breathing room against [Djokovic, Federer and Nadal] than in this match. I think that it’s different game styles. Novak will have these long rallies, but he’ll kind of slowly get you out of position and overwhelm me. I still feel like I can hang in these rallies for a long time and get more chances to attack.

“I’d go back to the first couple games of the match. He just [hit] winners and shots that hurt me off of a lot of shots that people normally aren’t hurting me off. 

“Definitely less [breathing space than against Djokovic, Federer and Nadal]. I just felt he was more offensive and pressed me a lot more.”

Alcaraz hardly wants for inspiration but, if additional impetus were required, it is hard to imagine a more flattering comparison.

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Counter-intuitive? Most certainly. Effective? The 6-4, 6-3 victory that saw Cirstea advance to the semi-final of a WTA 1000 event for the first time in a decade – and only the second time in a career spanning 17 years – would suggest so.

At the age of 32, Cirstea is having a moment. The Romanian, ranked 74th but once as high as 21, is playing with a boldness and belief that always felt tantalisingly close, yet has only rarely come to fruition. In Indian Wells, where she reached the quarter-finals earlier this month, Cirstea eliminated Caroline Garcia, the world No 4 and WTA Finals champion. Drawn against the Frenchwoman again in Miami, she not only repeated her victory but also backed it up with notable wins over Karolina Muchova and Marketa Vondrousova. 

It had been a fruitful period for Cirstea even before she faced down Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion, Indian Wells finalist and now the highest-ranked opponent she has ever beaten. Yet it was the manner of Cirstea’s win, rather than any statistical milestone, that most impressed. She has always had the weapons; the challenge, for a player with a history of injuries and inconsistency, has been how best to deploy them.

“I don’t know much about numbers and results, and I don’t keep track,” said Cirstea, who is already guaranteed to return to the brink of the top 40 next week and may yet climb considerably higher. “I think as a player you try to just focus more on the work rather than on the mathematical rankings and all that on paper. 

“I think I have always been a good player. I have always been a dangerous player. I have always had a big game, but sometimes I lacked a bit of consistency. So I would have, let’s say, three, four months when I was playing really well, and then drop the level and then come back again.

“In these 10 years [since reaching the 2013 Canadian Open final, her best previous run at this level] I feel like I have had great results as well, and periods where I was playing very, very well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep that level the whole year. 

“It’s always a puzzle, and now all the pieces are starting to come together.”

A central figure in that process has been Thomas Johansson, the former Australian Open champion and world No 7, with whom Cirstea began working last October after a shoulder injury cut short her season. Their partnership has been less about forehands and backhands and more about what Cirstea calls “tennis IQ”: the ability to read the game, to be aware of the dynamics of court positioning, to ally shot-making ability with tactical clarity. All those qualities were in evidence against Sabalenka, given vocal reinforcement by the watchful Johansson.

The tone was set in the opening game, where the Belarusian double-faulted before Cirstea rifled a forehand return winner to bring up three break points. Cirstea’s willingness to take on her returns, particularly against the second serve, was to become a recurrent motif, instilling early doubts in the mind of an opponent who had gone unbroken in the previous two rounds. Elena Rybakina established the efficacy of the tactic in the Indian Wells final, where 10 double-faults played a major role in Sabalenka’s undoing, and Cirstea took a leaf straight out of the Kazakh’s playbook, ratcheting up the pressure on Sabalenka’s second ball. The cumulative pressure proved intolerable: three of Sabalenka’s six double-faults came on break points.

“I knew I had to come out swinging, and I had to be strong at the beginning, because once she gets that first few games, you know she’s going to be on a roll, she starts swinging more and more and it’s definitely difficult,” said Cirstea, who will face either Ekaterina Alexandrova or Petra Kvitova in the last four. 

“The main thing was for me to be aggressive, not let her dictate the points.”

It was a remit Cirstea fulfilled to perfection, going toe-to-toe with Sabalenka in the baseline exchanges, refusing to give ground. The Belarusian, so accustomed to dictating, looked increasingly forlorn as the contest wore on, gesturing in frustration towards her coach, Anton Dubrov, as Cirstea stepped inside the baseline and fired hard, deep shots down the centre of the court, denying her angles. Sabalenka was not helped by hot, lively conditions that put control at a premium.

“It definitely wasn’t my best match,” Sabalenka acknowledged. “I was struggling a lot with the conditions, like heat. I felt like balls were flying too much and I couldn’t find control, controlling the ball.

“I was just trying to do my best till the last point. I just couldn’t adjust to these conditions, unfortunately.”  

Sabalenka recovered one break, nailing a forehand approach shot to level the first set at 4-4, but was soon left swatting at the ground in frustration as she gifted the initiative back to Cirstea with another double-fault. A spate of backhand errors followed in the next game, Sabalenka waving her arms in exasperation as Cirstea calmly fired down an ace to seal the opening set. 

Inevitably, a bathroom break followed. But not even a seven-minute delay could take Cirstea out of her stride. As the Romanian feasted on a second serve, slamming yet another winning return down the line, Sabalenka rolled her eyes heavenward. Predictably, a double-fault followed. By the time Cirstea completed a straightforward hold to consolidate the advantage, she had won 12 of the previous 15 points. At a set and a break down, the alarm bells were ringing for Sabalenka.

The Australian Open champion responded by dialling up the power. She held, broke with a searing backhand winner, and held again with the help of two aces. The impression that the tide might be turning hardened in the next game when Cirstea double-faulted after recovering from 0-30 down.

Instead, a pair of Cirstea aces sandwiched a wild backhand from Sabalenka. Further frustration quickly followed for the Belarusian, a poked backhand return winner from Cirstea bringing up another break point – and another double-fault. The Romanian would not be caught.

“I always believed that with this game I can do great things,” said Cirstea.

With that belief so richly vindicated over the past month, it will be fascinating to see where she goes from here.

The post Sorana Cirstea stuns Aryna Sabalenka at Miami Open appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic started the season by reeling off 20 straight victories before Daniil Medvedev, himself in the middle of what would become a 19-match unbeaten run, defeated the Serb in Dubai. 

For the women, Aryna Sabalenka led the way, racking up 13 straight wins – including a first grand slam title at the Australian Open – until she ran into an inspired Barbora Krejcikova. That was also in Dubai, where Krejcikova ended another small but significant streak, denying Iga Swiatek a seventh consecutive win just as the Pole was beginning to resemble the player who was a month into a 37-match winning run this time last year.

Now it is the turn of Carlos Alcaraz and Elena Rybakina, the winners in Indian Wells 10 days ago, and the hottest tickets in town at the Miami Open as they go in search of the elusive “sunshine double”. 

Having ended Medvedev’s triumphal march in southern California, Alcaraz, the world No 1 and US Open champion, is now on a nine-match winning streak of his own. The latest addition to that sequence came in the shape of a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Tommy Paul that moved him into the quarter-finals, three wins away from defending the title he won last year against Norway’s Casper Ruud. Next up is Taylor Fritz, the big-serving American whom he succeeded as Indian Wells champion, who saw off seventh seed Holger Rune 6-3, 6-4.

“I have never played against him, so it’s going to be really tough, you know, new opponent for me, new, let’s say, style of game for me.

“But I’m going to be focused on me, just on me, to play my game, you know, to have a lot of time to enjoy, to play relaxed, to smile on court. That’s the key [to] everything for me.”

Rybakina, meanwhile, the Wimbledon champion and 10th seed, swept past Italy’s Martina Trevisan 6-3, 6-0 to notch up a dozen straight wins. For the moment, Alcaraz is undoubtedly the fresher of the pair. While the Spaniard has yet to drop a set over the sunshine swing, Rybakina’s path has been fraught with difficulty. In the final rounds of Indian Wells, the 23-year-old overcame Swiatek and Sabalenka, the world’s top two players. Five days later, as she got her Miami campaign underway with a battling three-set win over Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, she looked weary. Then she ran into Paula Badosa for the second time in a fortnight and became wearier still, delivering an error-strewn performance that saw her teeter on the brink before a match point was saved and another deciding set won.

With so much tennis in her legs, a relatively straightforward win over Trevisan was just what the doctor ordered. The Italian, seeded 25th and playing well enough to defeat Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets in the previous round, fought gamely in the early stages but lacked the firepower to trouble Rybakina, who underlined her superiority with 10 aces. It was the fourth match in a row in which she has hit double figures in that category, a useful habit to have when it comes to conserving energy. Rybakina did not land her booming first serve as often as she would have liked, but she invariably found it when it most mattered.  

“Of course, I feel that I’m not the freshest,” said Rybakina. “[It] would be better to feel better on the courts physically, but this is something I have to play with, and for now [I’m] getting through, which I’m happy with.

“I would say that maybe I’m moving not as good as I was moving in Indian Wells, but overall I think that I’m trying to keep that level from Indian Wells. There are a lot of ups and downs, but I think overall it’s not bad.

“Even being not fresh, you still need to push yourself to find these moments in the match where it can turn around, which is not easy to always to do, but I think for now I’m managing. 

“Even today I didn’t serve that well, the percentage of the first serve [54%], but in these important moments like 30-30, 30-40 or something like this, I was serving [an] ace. So I think it’s just important to find these moments and to push, and for now [I’m] doing well even being not super fresh.”

Fatigue has done no more to slow her down off the court than it has on it. News emerged this week that the Moscow-born Rybakina has donated roughly $77,000 (£62,327) to support the development of 14 young female players in Kazakhstan, the country she has represented since 2018. 

It is a move she first mooted following her victory at the All England Club last summer, when she expressed a desire to give back to a federation that provided vital financial backing at a pivotal moment in her career. At the time, the world’s focus was on her Russian heritage and what it meant for a tournament that had banned Russian and Belarusian players in response to the war in Ukraine. In truth, Rybakina’s altruism is more of a piece with the social awareness shown by other stars of her generation such as Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka. 

“It just happened now, recently, because I was traveling a lot and it’s not easy,” said Rybakina, who won £2m for her Wimbledon win. “We talked with the [Kazakh] federation, since I don’t know the girls that well since I’m traveling all the time. So we talked. 

“We decided that, for now, it’s going to be 10 girls, 12 girls, I don’t remember exactly. But it was just [a] big help for me when I started professionally, from the federation, so I was thinking that [this would be a] good way to kind of thank [them] back. 

“I think it’s important for the young girls to have some kind of support, since it’s not easy for everyone.”

Alcaraz seems intent on following a similar path, with reports in the Spanish press indicating that the 19-year-old plans to set up a charitable foundation in his native Murcia. Meanwhile, however, there is a title to defend. Victory over Paul, who saved a match point to win their only previous meeting in Montreal last year, was a positive step in that direction. After a competitive opening, Alcaraz broke to love in the fifth game, helped on his way by a trademark piece of athletic brilliance as he somehow chased down an exquisite angled drop shot from Paul, flicking it over the high part of the net to force an error. It was the most spectacular moment in a run of 13 points from a possible 15 that gave the Spaniard the platform for a win that moves him to the brink of a double-digit winning streak. Now he is trying to banish thoughts of following in the footsteps of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, the two most recent of the seven male winners of the sunshine double.    

“It’s something that I really want,” admitted Alcaraz. “I want to be part of the few players that made the sunshine double. 

“It would be great to achieve that, but it is something that I do not think about. [I] try to think about day by day, match by match, and that’s all I try to think about. 

“But of course it would be great to be part of [those] few, few players.”

To pull it off, Alcaraz will need to match Rybakina’s current mark of 12 straight wins. In a season notable for such runs, it would be another apt addition to the chronicle.

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Five days ago, Alcaraz staged a masterclass in Indian Wells to dismantle Daniil Medvedev in slow, windy conditions in the final of Indian Wells. In Miami, on a day when the heat and humidity were such that Ons Jabeur, the women’s fourth seed, needed medical attention as she laboured to an early defeat, Alcaraz simply picked up from where he left off in southern California. Never mind the slicker courts. Never mind the quicker balls. If Alcaraz is to retain the world No 1 ranking he regained from Novak Djokovic last weekend, nothing less than a successful title defence will do. The 19-year-old looked intent on doing just that.     

“I feel great for my first match here, getting used to these conditions,” Alcaraz told the Tennis Channel’s Prakash Amritraj. 

“I feel prepared for this week. I had some days off [after Indian Wells] to take a rest a little bit. Of course, I practised twice here before I started the tournament. After this match, it’s a perfect start. I feel ready for this tournament.

“For me, it’s a totally different tournament [in terms of] conditions. Here there is more humidity, the court is faster. I have to be ready and get used to this court and these conditions. I would say I’m a guy who adapts his game very well, but it’s tough to get used to different conditions like this.”

It did not appear overly tough as Alcaraz rattled off 11 straight points at the start of the match, eventually wrapping up the opening set in just 23 minutes after not dropping a single point on serve. Time and again, the Spaniard’s weighty returns materialised at Bagnis’s feet almost before the hapless world 100 had even completed his service motion. The Argentinian was never allowed to get comfortable in the baseline exchanges, the ball whirring up around his shoulders or hurtling into faraway corners with such dispiriting frequency that, when he finally held serve in the ninth game of the match to make a belated appearance on the scoreboard, he hurled his racket skywards in celebration. There was more joy for Bagnis in the next game as Alcaraz, his focus momentarily wavering, dropped serve to love. Predictably, it proved short-lived.

Elsewhere in the men’s draw, ninth seed Taylor Fritz advanced to a third-round meeting with Denis Shapovalov courtesy of a 6-4, 6-1 win over Emilio Nava, a 21-year-old American wild card ranked 182nd. Alexander Zverev was an early casualty, however, the former world No 2 committing 32 unforced errors as he fell 6-0, 6-4 to Taro Daniel of Japan.

“In the first set he was struggling and I just didn’t want to let him get his rhythm back,” said Daniel. “Sometimes it’s a matter of letting them keep playing badly. It’s a little bit of a dirty fight.”

The biggest shocks were reserved for the women’s draw, where Jabeur, the fourth seed, was once again an early casualty following last week’s loss to Marketa Vondrousova in Indian Wells. The Tunisian, continuing her return from knee surgery was beaten 6-2, 6-2 by Russian qualifier Varvara Gracheva, the world No 55.

“The plan was, of course like all matches, to be as stable as possible, to try to make her work as much points as possible, and of course wait for comfortable ones to attack,” said Gracheva following her third top-10 win of the season.

Caroline Garcia, the fifth seed and WTA Finals champion, was beaten 6-2, 6-3 by Sorana Cirstea. The Romanian world No 74 also defeated her in Indian Wells. 

Bianca Andreescu, the former US Open champion, won an epic contest against Maria Sakkari, taking down the seventh seed 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 in a contest spanning three hours and four minutes. 

“I think it’s just another step in gaining most of my confidence back,” said Andreescu, whose career has been blighted by injuries since her victory at Flushing Meadows in 2019. “I’m feeling really good on the court. 

“I’m trying to be as fearless as I can be. It’s not always easy, but I feel like I’m getting there, and wins like this obviously help with that because at this point I think it’s just me getting matches in and playing tough rounds like this and knowing I can win.”

The post Alcaraz starts Miami Open defence in style as Jabeur falls appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Swiatek said in a statement on social media that the problem was caused by a bout of heavy coughing she suffered after picking up an infection during her title run in Doha last month. The world No 1 will also miss Poland’s Billie Jean King Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan next month in Astana, where she was due to face Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion, who defeated her last week in Indian Wells.

“I wanted to wait till the last minute,” said Swiatek after pulling out of her opener against Claire Liu. “We were checking if this is the kind of injury you can still play with, or this is the kind when you can get things worse. 

“I think the smart move for me is to pull out of this tournament, because I want to rest and take care of it properly.”

Swiatek declined to elaborate on the specific nature of the injury, but said it started to cause her discomfort in the latter stages of her quarter-final win over Sorana Cirstea in Indian Wells. The Pole, who was far from her best in her subsequent loss to Rybakina, said she did not expect to be side-lined for long, adding that the pain only affected “certain movements”, most notably the serve.

“It’s not like it happened in one minute or one second,” said Swiatek, whose place in the draw will be taken by Austria’s Julia Grabher, a lucky loser. “It’s not a serious thing, because we caught it pretty early. I felt like [managing] it was a process.

“At first with these minor things, your body doesn’t feel anything. I started to feel it in the last games against Sorana.

“The break is not going to be long if everything goes well. I’m not concerned. 

“It’s not a big pain, honestly. It’s just that I know I can make it worse if I play.”

With Swiatek unable to defend the 1,000 points she earned for her victory over Naomi Osaka in last year’s final, her rivals will have an opportunity to make up ground at the top of the rankings. The French and US Open champion, who has 9,975 points, currently holds a 3,235-point advantage over second-placed Aryna Sabalenka. But defending the mountain of points she accumulated from last year’s 37-match winning streak was always likely to be a challenge for Swiatek. Were Sabalenka to win her third title of the season in Miami, the gap would narrow to a less daunting 1,235 points. Jessica Pegula, ranked third on 5,605 points, will also be eager to consolidate her position at the game’s top table.

“Of course, I’m going to lose points from this tournament, but it doesn’t change anything in terms of my approach and my mentality,” said Swiatek. 

“I was also aware at the beginning of the season that it’s going to be hard for me to defend all these points, because these streaks, winning all these tournaments – looking logically and statistically, it’s not like it’s going to happen every year. I’m doing my best job to play as best as possible. 

“For sure, this tournament is not going to help. But on the other hand, as I said, injuries happen. 

“I feel like I’m only right now missing one tournament. What’s going to happen next, we’ll see. Obviously, it’s going to depend on the recovery, but for now it’s not a horrible scenario. It happens.”

Sabalenka, meanwhile, has spoken of facing “hate” in the locker room over the role of her native Belarus in the Ukraine war. Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president and a close ally of the Putin regime, has supported Russia since the conflict began, allowing last year’s assault on northern Ukraine to be launched from Belarusian territory as well as providing equipment and facilities. 

“It was really tough for me, because I’ve never faced that much hate in the locker room,” said Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion, who will open her campaign in Miami against Shelby Rogers of the US. 

“’There are a lot of haters on Instagram when you’re losing matches, but in the locker room I’ve never faced that.

“It was really tough to understand that there’s so many people who hate me for no reason. I did nothing.

“I had some, not like fights, but I had some weird conversations with, not the girls, but with members of their team. It was tough. It was [a] tough period. 

“But, now it’s getting better.”  

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