The TENNIS.com Round Robin: What intrigues about the Miami Open?

As spring gets underway, so does the Miami Open—back on the calendar after a one-year, pandemic-induced hiatus. Naturally, our team of editors and writers had plenty to say about this big-time event.

Kamakshi Tandon: At this point, it's who'll show up—and why. The tournament has been hit by a number of big-name withdrawals due to reduced prize money, the relative lack of rankings penalties and the two-week trip required for just one event. But it will be a big opportunity for whoever is there, and there could be some unusual names and interesting breakthroughs—a counter to some of the sameness we've sometimes seen at the big events.

Ashley Ndebele: Limited in-person attendance. Although Florida doesn’t require the general public to wear face coverings, the city of Miami does. (In South Beach, an 8 p.m. curfew was recently imposed due to massive amount of spring break activity.) It will be interesting to see how much cheering the players actually get.

David Kane: The new version Miami Open has hardly had a chance to unleash its full potential, forced to cancel its second edition at the Hard Rock Stadium in 2020. Though it lacked the coziness of Crandon Park, the revamped venue marveled with its scale and state-of-the-art amenities. The only major tournament to move this generation, will the 2019 standouts continue to dominate, or will a new slate of stars adjust to and embrace their new surroundings?

Steve Tignor: What intrigues me most is seeing the Grandstand court in Miami used as the main stadium. It's a great, compact court, with just 5,000 seats. Now fans—or at least the fans allowed in—will get to see players like Naomi Osaka on it.

Jon Levey: With the men’s draw missing some sizzle, I’m keeping my eye on that scrappy wild card from across the pond: Andy Murray. He hasn’t played Miami since 2016, but he’s won it twice and trained frequently in the city over his career. Even if his game has slipped, Murray’s passion to compete remains world class. The guy puts the mettle in metal hip.

Ed McGrogan: Jennifer Brady and Jessica Pegula. Really good friends and players, they will both be expected to succeed in Miami, and I’m curious to see how each handles the spotlight. For Pegula, can she keep her run going back home? For Brady, this feels like a title she can win.

Matt Fitzgerald: I’m interested to see how Ash Barty’s first tournament overseas in the COVID-19 era goes. The modified ranking system has worked in her favor up to this point, and Miami is a great place for her to return on the international stage, for it was the launching pad of her path to No. 1 two years ago, when she won the title.

Joel Drucker: How will players continue to handle the ongoing stress of being part of the traveling tennis circus amid a pandemic? Miami has historically been one of the tour’s liveliest spots, a spicy mix of urban color and high-stakes tennis. But with everything far more constricted these days, the players will occupy a far narrower bubble.

Van Sias: On the men’s side, Murray and John Isner are the only former champions in the field, while Kei Nishikori and Alexander Zverev are the only ones to have even reached the final. With so many pre-tournament withdrawals, will someone break through and come away with one of the game’s biggest prizes?

Peter Bodo: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal first met in an official match in the third round of Miami in 2004, months before the Spanish whiz kid turned 18. Nadal won with surprising ease, leaving many stunned by his unorthodox game. (Nadal did not manage to win that or any other installment of the Miami Open (0-5 in finals), while Federer is 4-1 for his career in Miami finals.)

Cale Hammond: The first meeting between Federer and Nadal. I was 12 years old, and will never forget John Barrett’s prescient and spine-tingling sign off: “A quite astonishing win by a young man who’s progress is so fast, so rapid, that one wonders where it will all end.” Seventeen years later, we are all still wondering.

Ashley Ndebele: The 2017 Roger Federer-Nick Kyrgios pressure-filled three-setter had all the makings of epic drama: tension, plot twists, Fed fans making line calls before points were over, boos, hot shots, momentum shifts, fire power, come-ons, clutch serving, three tiebreaks, you name it. There was no shortage of nail-biting moments.

Kamakshi Tandon: It's tempting to go with firecracker tennis on show during the Federer-Kyrgios semifinal a few years ago, but I'll throw in Anna Kournikova's 1998 run to what was then the Lipton final. On the way she beat four consecutive Top 10 players—Monica Seles, Conchita Martinez, Lindsay Davenport and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, before falling to Venus Williams. It was a record, and something I bring up when someone mentions that she never won a singles title.

Jordaan Sanford: Throughout all the years, Andre Agassi’s grueling three-set tiebreak victory over Pete Sampras in the 1995 edition remains my all-time favorite. It was always special watching the polar opposites clash, and it was also the first deciding-set tiebreak in tournament history.

Jon Levey: The 2005 five-set final between Federer and Nadal was a harbinger of the rivalry to come. I watched a large chunk of the match in the lounge of a NYC tennis club. As much as any thrilling point, what stuck with me was how those in the room were already establishing their allegiances: Roger’s grace vs. Rafa’s grit. More than 15 years later, the two camps are still trying to work out their differences.

David Kane: Trailing Crandon Park by three decades, the Hard Rock Stadium nonetheless managed an iconic moment—or certainly a meme—in its inaugural fortnight in 2019 when Bianca Andreescu and Angelique Kerber faced off in a rematch of their Indian Wells final. Kerber bowed out to Andreescu for the second time in two weeks, and the frustrated former No. 1 called the streaking Canadian “the biggest drama queen ever” at the handshake. Rock and roll, indeed.

Joel Drucker: I was there in 2007 when 19-year-old Novak Djokovic won his first Masters 1000 title. He’d just lost to Nadal in the finals of Indian Wells. Djokovic avenged that loss in Miami, and again reached the finals. His opponent: gritty Guillermo Canas, who’d just beaten Federer at Miami and Indian Wells. How would Djokovic handle the occasion? Easily. In control from the start, he handily beat Canas to take the title without dropping a set.

Steve Tignor: Most memorable for me in Miami was interviewing a 19-year-old Nadal in 2006 at the player hotel. He came down from playing video games in his room, and, rather than walking down the steps that led out of the hotel, he decided to leap all of them at once, and ended up crashing into the glass windows at the entrance to the building. No glass was cracked, he walked out unscathed, and we had a nice talk on his way to the airport.

Ed McGrogan: The Kyrgios-Federer three-tiebreaker night semifinal from 2017, the last iconic match when the tournament was held in Key Biscayne. It’s not the same event now.

Matt Fitzgerald: In 2011, one of my first “official” gigs was writing for the tournament’s website. It was a perfect crash course in seeing what it takes to work in this industry and the terrific efforts that go on behind the scenes. Kim Clijsters saved five match points against Ana Ivanovic that year and I ended up being granted a brief one-on-one interview with her.

Van Sias: Andre Agassi won this title six times, but to me, his run to the 1994 final—which he lost—stands out most. Playing with a surgically repaired wrist and seeded 31st, he beat three former and future No. 1 on his way to the championship match against Pete Sampras. Agassi ended up losing in three, but still came away with the belief that he was ready to challenge for major titles again.