One hour ago:Jasmine Paolini becomes first Italian woman to reach Miami semifinals… See more details.

One hourago:Jasmine Paolini becomes first Italian woman to reach Miami semifinals… See more details.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Jasmine Paolini is headed to the Miami Open semifinals for the first time.

The sixth-seeded Paolini defeated unseeded Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 6-2 on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to make the tournament’s final four this year.

Paolini is the first Italian woman to make the semifinals at Miami. There were six instances of Italian women making the quarterfinals there, most recently Martina Trevisan in 2023.

Paolini will face top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals. Sabalenka topped ninth-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China 6-2, 7-5 in their quarterfinal match on Tuesday night, capping a day where rain postponed many matches by several hours.

The other side of the women’s bracket is set for quarterfinal matches Wednesday, with fourth-seeded Jessica Pegula of the U.S. taking on Britain’s Emma Radacanu, and second-seeded Iga Swiatek facing Alexandra Eala of the Philippines.

Even the most successful junior tennis players can harbor doubts about their chances of making it at the pro level. The list of child prodigies who never reached the top of the adult game is longer than the list of those who did.

Alexandra Eala was very much a prodigy. She left her home and family to attend the Rafa Nadal Academy at 12, the same year she won the prestigious Le Petits As competition in France. At 13, she started playing junior Grand Slams. At 17, in 2022, she won the girls’ title at the US Open—beating, incidentally, Mirra Andreeva 6-4, 6-0 in the quarterfinals

Over the last two years, though, Eala’s confidence could have wavered. She’s the first player of any renown from the Philippines, and she has talked about not having any tennis role models from her country. In 2024, she lost in the final round of qualifying at Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open. She came to Miami ranked 140th in the world. All the while, she watched Andreeva rise frictionlessly into the Top 10, and become the toast of the WTA.

But according to Eala, she never saw herself doing anything other than what she did on Wednesday, when she beat five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek to make the semifinals at the Miami Open. Eala was asked by a reporter, “Is this the type of success you envisioned for yourself on the WTA level?” She didn’t hesitate in her answer.

“Of course,” she said.

“I think every single player here has envisioned themselves as a successful tennis player. This is the goal, to do well on the WTA Tour, to win Slams. In the end, the goal is to win Slams, to get the rankings. I think this is a good step towards where I want to be.”

There’s a mix of calmness and relentlessness in that answer. If you want to reach a goal, she seems to be saying, the only rational thing to do is to move forward, step by step, to achieve it, and not let any pointless doubts or distractions get in your way.

And that’s pretty much how Eala plays. There’s an appealing simplicity about her game: She stands close to the baseline, she takes the ball early and on the rise, she uses uncomplicated strokes, she hits hard and flat with a healthy margin of error, she attacks second serves and tries to gain the advantage right away. Her signature weapon is her easy-breezy down the line forehand, which she goes for whenever she can, and which her opponents have no time to react to.

All of that may sound basic, but it makes for an excitingly logical brand of tennis.

“I’ve been loving the way I’ve been feeling on court,” Eala told Tennis Channel after her win over Swiatek. “I’m trusting my shots, and I have a great team that tells me I can do it.”

The results have been stunning so far. Eala has beaten three Slam champs and three of the WTA’s hardest hitters, Jelena Ostapenko, Madison Keys, and Swiatek, in straight sets. She has done it in a somewhat unique way: By dismantling their service games. Eala broke Swiatek eight times in two sets, and won 80 percent of the points on Iga’s second serve.

Toni Nadal traveled to Miami for Eala’s match; when the teenager was asked about her mindset on her return, she sounded a little like Toni’s famous nephew.

“Take it early, and not to be afraid,” Eala said she told herself. “Not to be afraid to miss. It’s normal that I would miss some…but I cannot be afraid to continue to do what I know I have to do.”
Eala is still a work in progress, of course. She’ll need to get some more bite on her serve going forward, and while she closed out Swiatek in straights, there were a couple of nervous double faults as the finish line drew closer. Her run in Miami has reminded of the one that Leylah Fernandez—another lefty who is half-Filipino—made at the US Open in 2021. Fernandez obviously hasn’t replicated her tennis of that fortnight, but Eala is three inches taller—5-foot-9 to 5-foot-6—and hits what seems to be a heavier ball.

A new face is always reason to cheer. A new face from an entirely new country of 115 million people is something we don’t see often, or ever, in tennis, which is a sport that already seemed to have spread to every corner of the globe.

“My game plan was to stick to what I know and run,” Eala says of how she has been beating the big hitters in Miami.

Simple, logical, and exciting.

will probably come as a surprise to many—as it did to me—to find out that Fritz is 4-0 against Berrettini; that he has dropped just one set to him in those matches, and that it happened way back in their first meeting, in 2019.

In general, Berrettini, 28, has had a roughly similar career to Fritz, 27. The American has been ranked as high as No. 4, and has made one major final, at the US Open in 2024. The Italian has been ranked as high as No. 6, and has also made one major final, at Wimbledon in 2021.

Each has a big serve and forehand, and neither is known for their elegance or finesse. Berrettini’s ability to hit drives and slices with his backhand may give him more variety, but Fritz owns an underrated drop shot, and his two-handed backhand is more solid than Berrettini’s, especially on returns. Maybe that last fact helps explain Fritz’s domination of their matches.

To different degrees, each of these guys came to Miami in comeback mode. The oft-injured Berrettini, currently ranked 30th, has been looking to find his old Top 10 form for a couple of years now. Fritz, meanwhile, is trying to bounce back from a surprise slump that started with his early loss at the Australian Open. They both have three wins in Miami, which means they’ve found something this week.

Either player can win, depending on who serves and returns better. Berrettini is probably due for a victory over Fritz, but I think a possible title here for the American will be a major motivating factor. And that 4-0 record has to be there for a reason. Winner: Fritz—Steve Tignor.