Jiri Lehecka leaned on aggression and timely serving to beat Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-2 and advance to the Miami Open quarterfinals. The No. 21 seed served 10 aces, saved all five break points he faced and closed out the victory in just under two and a half hours.

“I kind of felt that in the second set, I gave Taylor a little bit more time to play how he wants to,” the No. 21 seed told Prakash Amritraj. “I wasn’t feeling great, didn’t create that many chances.

“So, that’s why I needed to improve this in the third set, to be more aggressive from the return and finish points at the net.”

Lehecka’s win ended a matchup that Fritz had previously led 4-1 in their head-to-head. The American entered the fourth-round clash as the No. 6 seed but has struggled physically in recent months and had weighed an extended break from the game coming into the Masters 1000 event. Still, Fritz forced a deciding set after winning a second-set tiebreak.

“Against a player like he is, I really need to bring my ‘A’ game,” said Lehecka, who had never been past the third round in three previous main-draw appearances in Miami. “I need to serve well and I can’t give him any chance to feel comfortable on court. So, that’s what I was trying to do. Of course, it’s impossible to hold it the whole match, but I was close.”

Lehecka will meet Spanish qualifier Martin Landaluce in the last eight. The 20-year-old reached the quarterfinals by winning a third straight set to end No. 32 seed Sebastian Korda’s run, a day after Korda stunned world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz in three sets.

“It gave me a signal to change something,” Lehecka said of the setback. “I needed to be a little bit more aggressive. Against a guy like him, who is serving incredibly, his return is one of the best on tour. I kind of feel that he can absorb the fast balls easily. At the same time, he can create the power by himself. Sometimes, when you play someone like Taylor, you feel like this guy has answers for everything. That’s what I didn’t want to feel today, and that’s why I was focusing more on the openings of the points. It worked well.”

“You always need to stay in the present, which is so easy to say, but when you’re on the court and the opponent plays well, you’re not feeling great and it’s the biggest challenge!” said Lehecka. “Today, I think my game helped me a little bit to feel good on court.”

This day’s slate at the Miami Open centers on three intriguing quarterfinals that promise contrasting styles and storylines.

Karolina Muchova arrives off a 6-0, 6-2 win over Alex Eala, but Victoria Mboko is hardly an easy draw. “I just know it’s going to be very tough,” Mboko says of facing Muchova. Mboko lost to Muchova in the Doha final last month, 6-4, 7-5, yet she brings credentials of her own: she is ranked five spots higher (No. 9 to 14), reached the Indian Wells quarterfinals where she fell in two tight sets to Aryna Sabalenka, and recently beat Mirra Andreeva in three sets. Mboko’s game currently leans on groundstroke pace and foot speed; her stated objective is to extract more free points from her serve. “Hopefully I can kind of just work with my game and just see what patterns I could do, or whatever I can do to try to gain more free points,” Mboko says. Muchova has more variety to deploy, but she can be overpowered, as Iga Swiatek showed with a 6-2, 6-0 victory at Indian Wells. Winner: Mboko

On the men’s side, Sebastian Korda recently stunned Carlos Alcaraz, and Alex Michelsen will attempt a similar leap when he meets Jannik Sinner. The 21-year-old Californian has shown signs of growth: a Brisbane semifinal to start the year, three wins at Indian Wells including over Taylor Fritz, and two tight Miami wins, over Norrie and Tabilo, both 6-4 in the third. Michelsen has lost twice to Sinner; their first meeting in Cincinnati in 2024 finished 6-4, 7-5 and was closer than the score suggests, while a month later at the US Open Sinner lost just six games in three sets. Sinner is chasing his first Sunshine Double and is a three-time Miami finalist. The 6’4″ Michelsen brings more serve heat than Sinner’s recent opponents. Sinner is the favorite, but Michelsen is maturing and the crowd could matter. Winner: Sinner

Coco Gauff reaches her first Miami quarterfinal in seven appearances after three three-set wins over unseeded opponents. “There’s always that extra layer,” Gauff says of playing in South Florida, where she grew up and still lives. “You just see familiar faces in the crowd. You don’t want to disappoint them.” Her opponent, Belinda Bencic, is a counter-puncher; the two met four times in 2025 with Gauff winning three, two of them in three sets, and Bencic taking the Indian Wells rematch 6-4 in the third. Expect long points and momentum swings.

Jannik Sinner extended an uninterrupted run of dominance at Masters 1000 level, setting a new record for consecutive sets won at that tournament tier.

By beating Corentin Moutet in the third round of the Miami Open, 6-1, 6-4, Sinner reached 26 straight sets won at Masters 1000 events, surpassing Novak Djokovic’s previous mark of 24 set wins in a row from 2016. The victory moves the Italian ahead in the record books for streaks that date back to 1990, when Masters-level tournaments began.

Sinner’s run includes flawless performances at the two most recent Masters 1000 tournaments. He captured Paris last fall without dropping a set (10-0) and followed that by sweeping Indian Wells last week (12-0). In Miami, he tied Djokovic’s long-standing record two days earlier with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Damir Dzumhur in his opening match at the event. The straight-sets win over Moutet then took him past the previous high-water mark.

The streak reflects consecutive completed sets won at Masters 1000 events; note that a walkover loss would end the run. With the Miami Open still under way, Sinner’s sequence now stands as the longest such streak in Masters 1000 history.

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