MIAMI: Philippine wildcard Alexandra Eala pulled off the biggest win of her young career with a 6-2, 7-5 upset of Iga Swiatek at the Miami Open on Wednesday while Emma Raducanu’s surprise run ended with a 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-2 quarter-final loss to Jessica Pegula.

With the latter contest finishing close to 11:30pm, the men’s quarter-final between Novak Djokovic and Sebastian Korda was pushed to Thursday under ATP rules aimed at avoiding matches dragging on into the early hours of the morning.

Explosive 19-year-old Eala showed no signs of being intimidated playing against one of her idols and was instead a picture of poise as she dismantled world number two Swiatek’s serve early on and never looked back.

“I don’t know what to say, I mean, complete just disbelief right now and I am on cloud nine,” Eala said. “It’s forever in my heart.”

Swiatek, playing the match with added security after being verbally abused by a spectator at the weekend, failed to hold serve throughout the first set, while Eala was swinging freely as she unleashed winners from all over the court.

Five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek hit a staggering 19 unforced errors in the opening set and then received some advice from her coach before briefly leaving the court.

Eala overturned a 4-2 deficit in the second set and held her nerve when Swiatek was trying to serve it out at 5-4 before ultimately closing it out with her eighth break of the match.

The victory over Swiatek marked the third Grand Slam winner Eala has knocked out of the women’s draw after earlier wins over Australian Open champion Madison Keys and 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.

Up next will be American fourth seed Pegula, who overcame 2021 US Open champion Raducanu to reach her third semi-final in Miami.

Raducanu dropped the opening set and appeared out of sorts while up 5-4 in the second, requiring a medical timeout during which she had her legs and back iced.

The Briton overcame the issue and levelled the contest after a flawless tiebreak but Pegula raised her level again and hit a flurry of winners in the decider to prevail.

On the men’s side, top seed Alexander Zverev was upset by Arthur Fils 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 as the rising Frenchman made the last eight of a Masters 1000 tournament for the second successive occasion after doing so at Indian Wells earlier this month.

The towering German crushed an ace to capture the first set but the 17th-seeded Fils turned the tables in the next, securing an early break and smacking a cross-court winner to draw level.

Zverev broke for a 3-1 lead in the decider, but then began to struggle with his accuracy as his normally trusty backhand failed him at critical moments while his opponent began to feed off the energy of the crowd.

Fils, 20, confidently served out the match to set up a quarter-final showdown with 19-year-old Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic.

“In the third set I thought it was over almost, 3-1, he’s serving great,” Fils said after the match, which had been postponed a day due to rain.

“But I said don’t get mad, just try to play as much as you can, try to fight and if you make a break, it’s nice. And it happened.”

Grigor Dimitrov saved a match point to beat Argentine Francisco Cerundolo 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-6(3) in a bruising, two-hour and 47-minute quarter-final on a hot night under the lights.

Cerundolo erased seven set points and converted on his first opportunity to take the opener before the 14th-seeded Bulgarian rode an early break in the second set to level the match.

Cerundolo had a golden opportunity on match point while leading 6-5 in the third but could not put Dimitrov’s soft second serve into play.

In the deciding tiebreak, Dimitrov hit a spectacular forehand winner on the opening point and ended up down on the court with an ankle injury.

The 33-year-old toughed it out, doubling over in exhaustion after Cerundolo’s forehand went wide to end the match.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2025