Favorites take care of business one day after Nadal's exit

Two of the top seven seeds went south in South Beach on Sunday, when Stan Wawrinka’s loss to Adrian Mannarino preceded Fernando Verdasco’s stunner against Rafael Nadal. But the mass of fourth-round entrants was not entirely surprising.

“[Verdasco] played well the third, so he deserved to win more than me without any doubt,” Nadal said after going down 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 to his fellow Spaniard. “Today, my game in general improved since a month and a half [ago]. But at the same time, [I’m] still playing with too many nerves in a lot of moments, in important moments.

“I was anxious on court. I tried in every point, but I was not able to relax myself; calm myself.”

For the most part, favored players were able take care of business on Monday, with only Milos Raonic having to survive especially tense situations. The Canadian held off Jeremy Chardy 6-1, 5-7, 7-6(3) after two hours and 10 minutes.

Novak Djokovic got the job done against Steve Darcis in straight sets, although the match did no go quite as straightforward as the world No. 1 may have planned. Darcis served for the second set at 5-4 only to drop three games in succession en route to a 6-0, 7-5 defeat.
“I managed to come back in the right moment,” the top seed explained. “I elevated the intensity and started playing a little bit more with depth on the ball. I was handling it really good for first 30 minutes then started to make some unforced errors and started to play a little bit more neutral, a little bit slower, and he got into the match.

“[I] complicated my own life in the second set, but in the end of the day, it’s a win.”

Wins were also had on Monday by Alexandr Dolgopolov, David Ferrer, Gilles Simon, John Isner, Kei Nishikori, and David Goffin.