Zverev Rolled By Ruusuvuori In Miami Opener, Medvedev Sharp; Rublev, Tsitsipas Today

On the very first day of the Miami Open when seeds played, the tournament has lost a Top 3 seed as No. 3 Alexander Zverev was stunned in his opening match Friday by Finnish talent Emil Ruusuvuori 1-6, 6-3, 6-1.

The 21-year-old Ruusuvuori earned his biggest career win after calmly rolling the former Miami finalist winning 12 of the last 16 games.

“He’s a top-10 player, great player. He came from a tournament win,” he said. “Of course you can say he was a little down physically and I was able to pick it up and use my chances, but of course it does a lot, these two good wins. Yeah, going into the third round, it makes a difference.”

Zverev, who had just won the Acapulco title, showed up in Miami with his right arm heavily strapped.

“You can see the tapes from outside and you never know what’s going on,” Ruusuvuori said. “He played a lot of matches. Of course it shows. So, yeah, I don’t know. But that’s on his side.

“I was able to just use my chance like didn’t really miss any balls anymore and just making him play a lot of balls and maybe he was starting to lose it a little bit and I was able to be stronger, so that was the key today in the third set. But, yeah, I mean, it’s tough to say what’s going on.”

Sporting a new mustache, Tournament favorite Daniil Medvedev played like it cruising past Yen-Hsun Lu 6-2, 6-2. He’ll now meet Alexei Popyrin who upset American big man Reilly Opelka.

“We had few practice sessions this preseason and one afterwards,” Medvedev said of Popyrin.

“But he’s a great player. You know, I think still young, still coming up. Great strokes, great serve. Solid baseline player, but he can go to the net, hit winners from all corners of the court. Really great player. It’s going to be a tough match. Looking forward to it. I feel good here in Miami. So again, if I play good it’s tough to beat me, and I think he knows that also.”

Medvedev also explained the mustache.

“There is actually no story,” Medvedev said. “Sometime, I think it was actually like last year in the beginning of the year I was doing a photo shoot and they were shaving me for the photo shoot, and they just left the mustache for a few minutes. I was, like, it’s not too bad. It was a little bit different because they had special shavers and stuff. So I think it was looking better.

“Since that time I always thought, okay, one moment I’m just going to do it, you know, for fun for one tournament or something like this. So probably after Miami I’m going to shave them off, but for this tournament it’s going to be like this and let’s see what people say.”

Jannik Sinner, Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Frances Tiafoe and Karen Khachanov were also winners and former champion John Isner rallied from a set down to deny Mackenzie McDonald.

On Saturday, the second round concludes with Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas making their debuts. Rublev meets Tennys Sandgren while Tsitsipas takes on Damir Dzumhur.

Kei Nishikori, Marin Cilic, Denis Shapovalov and Italian teen Lorenzo Musetti are also scheduled.

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