{"id":199574,"date":"2026-03-20T19:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199574\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T19:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:38:10","slug":"rising-stars-shine-top-seeds-await-as-early-rounds-deliver-upsets-at-miami-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199574\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising stars shine, top seeds await as early rounds deliver upsets at Miami Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 After rain washed out the opening day<\/a>, the Miami Open<\/a> at Hard Rock Stadium returned with a packed schedule that felt more like a full tournament week than a single day of play, as qualifiers, wild cards and rising stars took center stage.<\/p>\n

On the men\u2019s side, the Round of 128 featured 24 matches, with underdogs and young players grabbing attention while seeded stars remained on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Brazil\u2019s Jo\u00e3o Fonseca battled past Hungary\u2019s Fabian Marozsan 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, setting up a high-profile meeting with top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz on Friday at 7 p.m. <\/p>\n

Fonseca, fired 12 aces in his match against Marozsan, as he continues to face top-tier competition.<\/p>\n

American Ethan Quinn pulled off a notable upset, defeating former Miami champion Hubert Hurkacz 6-2, 6-4. Another American, Alex Michelsen, advanced with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Matteo Bellucci, of Italy.<\/p>\n

French wild card Moise Kouame, 17, earned his first ATP Tour victory on Thursday, defeating Zachary Svajda 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Kouame became the first player born in 2009 or later to win a tour-level match. Eighteen-year-old American Darwin Blanch also moved on, beating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 3-6, 3-6.<\/p>\n

Other winners included Matteo Berrettini, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Roberto Bautista Agut, Marin Cilic and Botic van de Zandschulp, along with Reilly Opelka, who survived a tight three-set match against Nuno Borges.<\/p>\n

One of the day\u2019s most dramatic moments came from Raphael Collignon, who saved a match point to edge Grigor Dimitrov in three sets.<\/p>\n

Several qualifiers also made noise, including Martin Landaluce with a win over Marcos Giron and Rafael Jodar, who earned his first Masters 1000 victory.<\/p>\n

On the women\u2019s side, Victoria Mboko, of Canada, cruised past Anna Blinkova, of Russia, 6-2, 6-0, while Belinda Bencic, of Switzerland, defeated Zeynep Sonmez, of Turkey, 6-3, 6-2 to advance.<\/p>\n

With seeded players still to come into the draw, the opening rounds have already delivered upsets, milestones and breakout performances as the Miami Open continues.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for a closer look at the men\u2019s and women\u2019s draws. <\/p>\n

THE PRIZES<\/p>\n

The tournament is part of the ATP Masters 1000 <\/a>and WTA 1000<\/a> circuits<\/p>\n

Winner: $1,151,380<\/p>\n

Runner-up: $612,340<\/p>\n

Semifinal: $340,190<\/p>\n

Quarterfinal: $193,645<\/p>\n

Fourth round: $105,720<\/p>\n

Third round: $61,865<\/p>\n

Second round: $36,110<\/p>\n

First round: $24,335<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 After rain washed out the opening day, the Miami Open at Hard Rock Stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-199574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}