Mayhem has reigned at the Miami Open. While one expects the odd upset at any Masters 1000 or Major, it is highly irregular for 12 out of the Top 20 ATP seeds, including World No 1, Carlos Alcaraz, to be given their marching orders by round 3, considering all started with the benefit of a bye.
Further remarkable is most of the damage was done by a handful of red-hot youngsters, Frenchman Arthur Fils, American’s Ethan Quinn and Alex Michelsen, and Czech Jiri Lehecka, not to mention an unknown Spanish qualifier, Martín Landaluce.
One could add teenage Joao Fonseca to the lineup had he not had the misfortune to have come up against Alcaraz in Round 2. The Brazilian “raged against the dying of the light” with a respectable 4-6 4-6 scoreline, leaving the World No 1 sufficiently susceptible to his shock three set loss to American Sebastian Korda in the next round.
The common denominator between Fils, Fonseca, Lehecka and Michelsen is that all have suffered either a bad back injury, or in the case of the latter, a viral illness which kept them respectively sidelined for a lengthy period. It has taken hard work and discipline to regain peak fitness to achieve the calibre of wins they have collectively clocked up.
Most notably surging ahead to 11th in the rankings is 21-year-old Fils, who has reached the Quarters of Montpellier, Indian Wells & Miami, losing the final in Doha to Alcaraz.
The French dynamo has adopted a more professional approach since his 2025 recuperation and now travels with his own physio, enlisting the aid of former World No 2 Goran Ivanisevic for the Sunshine Double, no doubt contributing to Fils explosive serve.
Fils has also eliminated his consumption of choc chip cookies, all too readily available in the men’s locker rooms. Landaluce, meanwhile, attributes his sudden success to his “calm habits that help me do things naturally every day.”
Certainly his on-court demeanor is less flamboyant than Fils or Fonseca, but doesn’t belie his killer instinct, given the 20-year-old Spaniard practices with compatriot GOAT Rafa Nadal: “I haven’t allowed myself to be passive ― essential against tough opponents.” The teflon scalps he has bagged at the “Hard Rock”, being the 14th & 32nd seeds Khachanov and Korda.
Adding to the emergence of this lethal clutch of Next Gen players, snapping at the heels of entrenched top dogs Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev, is the standard of Challenger events, attracting the top 150 players in the world is presently off the charts, which — according to Fils — “is why some players can take ... over a year to break through.”
When one analyses the 2025 breakthrough of British No 1 Jack Draper, earning his first Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells, followed by Czechian teenager Jakub Mensik repeating this feat at Miami and the fact they have been upstaged by fellow teens only a year later, it illustrates the present depth and strength of men’s tennis.
So where does this leave top dog Alcaraz? With his tail between his legs, admitting Miami has not been a happy hunting ground and that his performance was “dreadful”, which by his lofty standards, it was.
He could not buy a first serve — the serve modelled on four times Sunshine Double winner Novak Djokovic supposedly infallible.
The truth is, Alcaraz was troubled less by his failing first serve and more by an apparent bout of homesickness and mental fatigue that he has been prone to in the past.
The Spaniard was overheard exclaiming in the dressing room after his loss to Korda: “I cant stand it anymore! I’m going home!”
Commentator Boris Becker, a huge fan of the Alcaraz style of play, who won Wimbledon at 17, throwing himself around the net with the same athleticism, agrees entirely: “Alcaraz did the same in 2024, when he suffered a slight slump post a premature 2024 US Open exit and took a break in Mexico. He came back rejuvenated and refocused. Let him go home — there’s no place like it to reboot.”
World No 10 Alexander Bublik might beg to differ. He chose Las Vegas to which to escape and face his demons and experienced a revelation to equally good effect.
Defending champion Jakub Mensik, who beat Sinner in Doha in February, should not be one of the “babies” tossed out with the bathwater in Miami. Fellow countryman Lehecka has progressed to the semis on this occasion. However, Mensik’s Round of 16 match against American Francis Tiafoe has been the hot match of this sizzling tournament.
Tiafoe had to save two match points in spectacular Alcarazesque fashion to prevail against this formidable Czech and that cookie in the changing room crumbled the American’s way, with roaring support from the partisan crowd, finally pushing “Big Foe” over the line.
Lehecka, as the seeded player, fittingly cancelled out Landaluce’s impressive run 7-6(1) 7-5, the first of the ‘Comeback Kids’ to reach the semis.
Fils, too, did not disappoint and made another Herculean effort to narrowly defeat American Tommy Paul 6-7 7-6 7-6. The question remains, will they have enough left in the tank to unseat Sinner, who, with Alcaraz removed from the equation, may have a slam dunk “Sunshine Double”.
