Alexander Zverev was thought to be one of the primary title contenders at what is a wide open Miami Open. After all, the world No. 7 has three Masters 1000 titles–and those tournaments had at least one of the Big 3 participating.
Without Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, or Roger Federer on hand this fortnight, Zverev seemingly had a golden chance to add to his Masters 1000 total. The 23-year-old also had plenty of confidence coming off a 500-point title last week in Acapulco.
Instead, Zverev went down right away in Miami–losing his first match to Emil Ruusuvuori on Friday afternoon. The 2018 Miami runner-up fell 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 after two hours and four minutes.
“I don’t even know myself [how I turned this match around],” said Ruusuvuori, who earned the second top-10 win of his career (previously defeated then-No. 5 Dominic Thiem in a 2019 Davis Cup rubber). “I wasn’t feeling very comfortable in the first set and I was making a lot of unforced errors. But slowly in the second I was starting to feel a bit better…. Of course, it’s one of the biggest wins in my career, so it feels good.”
Next up for Ruusuvuori is an all-unseeded affair with Mikael Ymer, who upset No. 27 seed and recent Doha champion Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.
In addition to Ruusuvuori and Ymer, other winners on Friday afternoon in Miami were No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev, No. 11 Felix Auger-Aliassime, No. 14 Karen Khachanov, No. 16 Dusan Lajovic, No. 18 John Isner, No. 21 Jannik Sinner, No. 22 Taylor Fritz, No. 31 Jan-Lennard Struff, and No. 32 Alexander Bublik.
In perhaps the best second-round match so far, the nightcap saw Frances Tiafoe knock off No. 19 seed Dan Evans 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3
nice one, Russ