TIE-BREAKFAST - 26/03 Miami Open

Good morning and welcome back to TIE-Breakfast: all the tennis you need at breakfast.

The daily newsletter from Ace Cream during Masters 1000 and Grand Slams, every morning at 8:30.

Today is Thursday, March 26, in Miami it's 03:30 and it's 20 degrees. OK, let's go.

Today at breakfast

• 🇫🇷 Fils saves four match points and beats Paul in a match to remember: Masters 1000 semifinal at twenty-one
• 🇨🇿 Lehecka ends Landaluce's dream run and reaches his second career Masters 1000 semifinal
• 🇰🇿 Rybakina rallies past Pegula for the fifth consecutive time, Sabalenka dispatches Baptiste in straight sets
• 🇮🇹 Sinner-Tiafoe and Gauff-Muchova open the day, Sabalenka-Rybakina closes the evening

WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT:

🇫🇷 Fils Saves Four Match Points And Reaches His First Masters 1000 Semifinal

Arthur Fils beat Tommy Paul 6-7(3), 7-6(4), 7-6(6) in two hours and forty-seven minutes, saving four consecutive match points in the third-set tiebreak when trailing 2-6, winning the last six points of the match. Paul had not conceded a single break point throughout the entire match, until the decisive game of the third set.

What we witnessed last night in Miami has the makings of one of those matches that stay in a season's memory. Fils played an aggressive but imprecise brand of tennis for long stretches, paying dearly at key moments in the first two sets, and when everything seemed over he found himself playing the best points of his evening. "It was a dog fight, and I never back down from a fight," he said after the match. At twenty-one, he becomes the youngest Frenchman to reach a Masters 1000 semifinal since Gasquet in 2007, and the sense is that these kinds of victories leave a mark that goes beyond the single result.

🇨🇿 Lehecka Ends Landaluce's Dream Run And Reaches The Semifinal

Jiri Lehecka beat Martin Landaluce 7-6(1), 7-5 in two hours and two minutes, ending the run of the twenty-year-old Spanish qualifier who had beaten three players inside the world's top 50 to reach the quarterfinals. The first tiebreak, dominated 7-1, and the break in the twelfth game of the second set tell the story of a player who knows how to raise his level at decisive moments with a consistency that the young Spaniard could not match.

Landaluce leaves Miami with his head held high, the first player born in 2006 to reach a Masters 1000 quarterfinal, and with a forty-eight-place jump in the rankings that brings him to the doorstep of the top 100. Lehecka, on the other hand, rises virtually to world number 16, equaling his career-best ranking, and will face Fils in the semifinal on Friday, in a match between two players going through the best stretch of their season.

🇰🇿 Rybakina Rallies Past Pegula For The Fifth Consecutive Time

Elena Rybakina beat Jessica Pegula 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in two hours and fifteen minutes, coming back from a first set in which she had committed twelve unforced errors against Pegula's two. The turning point came at 2-2 in the second set, with Pegula missing three break points: from that moment Rybakina won seven of the next eight games, completely changing the rhythm of the match.

Perhaps the most striking stat is the total points: Pegula won one hundred to Rybakina's ninety-eight, yet she lost. That's five consecutive wins for the Kazakh in their head-to-head, a dominance Pegula commented on with rare candor: "It sucks when you feel — you win more points and you lose the match. I almost rather just get killed 2 and 2 instead of being like 'Oh, you played great.'" In the semifinals Rybakina meets Sabalenka, in what has become the most frequent matchup in current women's tennis, their seventeenth encounter.

🇧🇾 Sabalenka Advances Without Dropping A Set, Baptiste Broken Twice On Serve

Aryna Sabalenka beat Hailey Baptiste 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and twenty minutes, capitalizing on two decisive double faults from the American on her service games to close out each set. Sabalenka is now 32-1 against players ranked outside the top 30 over the past year, a stat that shows just how solid her baseline level has become even in the less anticipated matches. Against Rybakina tonight it will be a completely different story, and she knows it: "It's always a challenge. We push each other to the limit."

WHAT'S ON TODAY:

• Sinner vs Tiafoe (1:00 PM local, 7:00 PM CET) — ATP Quarterfinals. Sinner leads 4-1 in the head-to-head and hasn't dropped a set in the tournament. Tiafoe comes off a solid start to the season and has promised "suffering" for the Italian, but Sinner's current form, on a nine-match winning streak, seems to be on another level entirely.
• Gauff vs Muchova (after Sinner-Tiafoe, ~9:00 PM CET) — WTA Semifinal. Gauff leads 5-0 in the head-to-head, a stat that weighs heavily, but Muchova comes from the Doha title and an 18-3 season record. Gauff reassured about the arm condition that had stopped her at Indian Wells: "I didn't feel it at all today."
• Zverev vs Cerundolo (7:00 PM local, 1:00 AM CET) — ATP Quarterfinals. Overall head-to-head tied at 3-3 but Zverev leads 2-0 on hard court, including a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 win at the Australian Open. However, Cerundolo eliminated Medvedev 6-0, 4-6, 7-5 along the way and seems in a different shape compared to Melbourne.
• Sabalenka vs Rybakina (after Zverev-Cerundolo, ~2:30 AM CET) — WTA Semifinal. Seventeenth encounter, Sabalenka leads 9-7 but Rybakina has won three of the last five meetings. Two weeks ago at Indian Wells, Sabalenka saved a championship point before winning in the third-set tiebreak. The match of the day, and perhaps of the tournament.

Further reading

• Fils: "I almost enjoyed being away from the Tour, I learned to appreciate the process"
• Fils: "Now I'm having fun. And in the big moments I make the difference"
• Rybakina rallies past Pegula to reach Miami semi-finals
• Five in a row: Rybakina beats Pegula again to make Miami semis
• Lehecka, the great dominator of the circuit outside the top 20

Enjoy your breakfast and have a great day.

See you tomorrow at 08:30 with TIE-Breakfast