Rafael Nadal’s shock defeat remained the most discussed topic in Key Biscayne on Sunday. The second seeded Nadal didn’t exactly flounder and played a generally smooth game. Though he lost the first set after being broken once, Nadal came back strongly in the second to win at 6-2. The two Spaniards looked equally matched in their service, breaking one another, or winning points. Each had general success on the service, each broke the other three times and while Verdasco won 84 points Nadal was not far behind with 83. To Nadal’s credit, he was able to force 12 break-points in the course of the match but Verdasco saved 9 out of them. Finally, Verdasco probably took advantage of Nadal’s tiredness in the third set and won the match 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. Nadal’s loss helped Andy Murray to jump to no.3 spot in the Emirates ATP rankings to be announced on Monday.
Seventh-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka was also upset on Sunday by no.31 seed Adrian Mannarino of France in two close sets. Like Nadal, Wawrinka too didn’t look like losing but the Frenchman Mannarino scraped past by taking two consecutive tie-breaks. Though, Wawrinka served 7 double faults, the Swiss never looked like ending as an upset victim.
Other than Nadal and Wawrinka’s early departures from Miami Masters, it was expected progress for other men and women’s seeds on Sunday. Andy Murray recorded his 499th victory on ATP World Circuit, when he disposed of Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-4. Murray’s next match win will be the historic 500th and that also ensures him a quarterfinal berth. But the Scotsman will have to get past South Africa’s big-serving player Kevin Anderson, who entered the last 16 by defeating Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer. Czech Tomas Berdych, who is the last active player to reach 500 ATP wins recently, dismissed the first set loss in beating Australia’s Bernard Tomic 6-7, 7-6, 6-1; Argentine Juan Monaco beat Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5, 6-4 and in a battle of two Frenchmen, Gael Monfils defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 7-6.
In the women’s draw, three notable matches involved Angelique Kerber of Germany going down to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova 3-6, 6-3. 3-6; Victoria Azarenka losing 6-7, 6-7 to Italian Flavia Pennetta and Serbian Ana Ivanovic losing 6-7, 5-7 to Germany’s Sabine Lisicki. Other than these, most women’s seed made smooth progress on Sunday. But the match that held extra attention was the one, in which 19-time grand slam champion and world no.1 Serena Williams played against 15-year old CiCi Bellis on the stadium court. The no.1 seed took only 41 minutes to win at 6-1, 6-1 but the match still brought pleasure for Bellis as she was overwhelmed with the sheer chance of facing one of the game’s greatest players.
Other women’s seeds who got through in their third-round matches were; no.3 seed Simona Halep, who beat Italian Camila Giorgi 6-4, 7-5; Sara Errani beat Spain’s Garbine Muguruza 4-6, 6-4, 6-1; USA’s Sloane Stephens defeated Johanna Larsson of Sweden 6-4, 6-4 and Swiss Belinda Bencic defeated Germany’s Tatjana Maria 6-4, 7-5.