Joao Fonseca, Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka all in action: Miami, Day 3 Preview

Coco Gauff vs. Sofia Kenin

They’re both from Florida, they’ve both won a major title, and their matches tend to lead to life-changing events.

At the Australian Open in 2020, Kenin, whose father wasn’t happy with the attention that the teenage Gauff was getting, beat Coco in three sets and went on to win her lone Slam.

At Wimbledon in 2023, Kenin won their first-round match, again in three sets. A distraught Gauff fired her dad as her coach, hired Brad Gilbert, and won her lone Slam at the US Open two months later.

Their most recent encounter, in the first round at this year’s Australian Open, wasn’t quite as significant or surprising. It resulted in a 6-3, 6-3 win for Gauff. Looking at their rankings—No. 3 for Gauff vs. No. 46 for Kenin—you might expect something similar when they meet on Thursday afternoon.

Since January, though, the gap between them has narrowed. Kenin has been improving in fits and starts for some time now, and she had a surge last month in Dubai, where she beat three higher-ranked players, Vekic, Kostyuk, and Paolini, in succession. Gauff, meanwhile, is just 2-3 over the past six weeks, and her serve and forehand have gone wonky again.

Look for this to be a tougher test for Coco, and a match she really isn’t going to want to lose. Winner: Gauff

Liudmila Samsonova vs. Naomi Osaka

“I would say like a solid 75,” Osaka said this week, when she was asked to rate her ball-striking level at the moment. “I think 75 is a good number.”

That’s 75 out of a 100 hundred, I assume. It was enough, barely, to get her through in three sets against 108th-ranked Yuliia Starodubtseva in her first match in Miami. But it’s not where Osaka feels she was to start the season.

Read more: Naomi Osaka survives opening scare, hits reset in Miami: "I just want to play with the big dogs"

“I felt really, really good in Australia,” Osaka said. “Then I got injured, and I couldn’t play for, like, three weeks to a month. That gap, it took me back quite a lot. I think now it’s better again, but I still find myself not really committed to the shots that I want to hit.”

The question for Osaka is whether she can reach a higher number against Samsonova, because 75 doesn’t seem like it’s going to be enough. The Russian is ranked 40 spots ahead of her, No. 21 to No. 61. She beat her the last time they played, 7-5 in the third in Madrid in 2024. And she made a decent run to the quarters last week in Indian Wells, before losing to Aryna Sabalenka.

Osaka has the better serve, and Samsonova can have bad days out of the blue; with her talent and physicality, she should be ranked higher. But on a good day, she’s a player who can match, or come close to matching, Osaka’s pace from the ground. Winner: Samsonova

Joao Fonseca vs. Learner Tien

Not many all-teenage matchups end up as night-session openers inside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. But this is a special case, for a few reasons.

First, Fonseca is an 18-year-old phenom who won 14 straight matches over the winter. That included a title at the Next Gen Finals last year, and a first-round win over Andrey Rublev at the Australian Open. Then he followed that up with another title in Buenos Aires. While the Brazilian lost badly to Jack Draper in Indian Wells, he bounced back right away with a Challenger title this past week in Phoenix.

Second, while Tien’s game isn’t as electrifying a Fonseca’s, he’s a 19-year-old American who beat Daniil Medvedev on his way to the second week in Melbourne. He also reached the title match at the Next Gen Finals, where he lost to, yes, Fonseca.

Their ages are similar, but their styles make for an interesting contrast. Fonseca blisters his forehand and backhand à la Carlos Alcaraz, while Tien massages the ball around the court and constructs his points patiently.

I’ll say that Fonseca’s winning week in Phoenix will pay dividends, confidence-wise, in this one. Winner: Fonseca