Lucic-Baroni earns Player of Week 1 at the Miami Open

Every week Baseline will select a “Player of the Week.” That athlete may not always win the highest category tournament that week, but perform the best compared to their recent playing history.

Mirjana Lucic-Baroni became one of the early candidates for story of the year in the tennis world when she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in 18 years at the Australian Open.

But even after reaching her career-high ranking of world No. 29 in January, the 35-year-old is showing no signs of slowing, and is proving that her run in Melbourne was no fluke.

On Saturday, Lucic-Baroni crushed world No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanksa, 6-0, 6-3, to reach the fourth round of the Miami Open.

“Australia was amazing for sure,” Lucic-Baroni said after her first win in Miami earlier in the week. “…It really was magical. It was perfect. But after the tournament, after I came home and spent time with my family, it was huge. But it's tough to explain—it also wasn't such a big deal. Nothing has changed in my life except I feel good and I didn't do what I knew I could do in a long time.”

She had to fight hard in her opener against Kateryna Bondarenko, coming back from 5-1 down in the third set to win her first match in Miami since 1999.

“It was a bit up and down for sure,” Lucic-Baroni said. “I didn't feel that I played that great … All of a sudden, at 5-1 in the third set, it was either wake up or go home.”

She settled in ahead of the encounter with Radwanska. While playing the crafty right-hander from Poland is a tricky match-up for most players, Lucic-Baroni steamrolled the favorite for the second time this year, after sweeping past the 28-year-old in the second round of the Australian Open.

Lucic-Baroni has already guaranteed that she will reach a new career-high ranking next week, but she has plenty of opportunity to make a deeper run first.

On Monday, she'll have a chance to reach the quarterfinals against American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who has already beaten two seeds in the draw, Elina Svitolina (No. 9) and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (No. 17).

"This is such a nice tournament because my whole family comes down; my husband and I drove in our car,” Lucic-Baroni said. “It has a really homey feeling. A lot of friends are coming to watch me play. So it's really nice. For me, I love it."

Everyone watching has loved watching Lucic-Baroni’s resurgence, too.