Friday 24 March 2017

Rain falls in Miami as does Svitolina

The weather interrupted play in Miami and it rained on the parade of a couple of highly regarded players in second round matches.
American Bethanie Mattek-Sands thrilled fans with her upset win over 9th seed Elina Svitolina.  Not so fortunate was fellow US seed Coco Vandeweghe, ousted by qualifier Jana Cepelova in three sets.

Other seeds to fall were Australian Dasha Gavrilova (23) and Croatian Ana Konjuh (29).
Indian Wells champion Elena Vesnina is on the verge of defeat to Croatian born Australian Ajla Tomljanovic.  Their match was stopped with Tomljanovic serving at 5-3 and 15-15 in the deciding third set.  Ajla won the last contest between the two in the second round of Roland Garros 2014.

Christina McHale is ready to deliver the final blow to sixth seed Garbine Muguruza when play resumes.  The American has an extraordinary lead 6-0 3-2 with a break of serve in the second set.  Nothing is certain though with the Spaniard and a different approach may yet turn things around.

Of course it wasn't all bad news for the top players with Karolina Pliskova, Dominika Cibulkova, Aga Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki, and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova advancing to the third round.

The final men's first round matches were due to be completed, but rain prevented some from being played.  First sight of the seeded players will still come tomorrow though after first round byes.  
Nishikori, Nadal, Raonic, Ciclic and Dimitrov will be on show, plus Sock and Johnson who will headline a number of Americans.  Qualifiers Ernesto Escobedo and Jared Donaldson join Donald Young and Taylor Fritz as first round winners from the US.

The locals will also be cheering Venus Williams, Madison Keys, Taylor Townsend and Shelby Rogers in second round women's battles.

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