No Sunshine Double for Swiatek as Alexandrova plays flawless tennis in Miami

Ekaterina Alexandrova, the No 14 seed, defeated Pole Iga Swiatek, the top seed, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Miami Open at the Hard Rock Stadium on Monday.

For an hour and 24 minutes on Monday night, Alexandrova played the best tennis of her life. The Russian had never faced a world No 1 before, and now she walks away with a perfect record against the best in the world.

This is only Alexandrova’s second win over a top five opponent – and she managed to do so against the woman who has hit the most winners on the WTA Tour this year, that holds a 90 percent win rate at across the Sunshine double.

Alexandrova takes the racquet out of Swiatek’s hand

Her tactics of standing up to Swiatek’s serve and bringing an aggressive, big-hitting game to the top seed produced great reward, with the world No 16 winning 52 percent of return points in the second set. While the Pole was far from her best, committing 27 unforced errors, Alexandrova never gave her a chance to get into the contest, with the match played almost entirely on her racquet as she struck 31 winners to Swiatek’s 11.

“I think tonight was amazing,” Alexandrova said, after ending Swiatek’s 10-tournament streak of consecutive WTA 1000 quarter-finals. “I just tried to play every single point, right from the first one to the end. I didn’t have any expectation. We’ve played so many times before, and every time it was so hard to play against her.

“I just went on the court and tried to do my best, and I think I did pretty well.”

Alexandrova, ranked No 16, will play No 5 seed Jessica Pegula next.

Ahead of her victory, the Russian won against Croat Donna Vekic (6-3, 6-4) and No 21 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6-4, 3-6, 6-3).

Swiatek, ranked No 1, won against Italian Camila Giorgi (6-1, 6-1) and edged out No 26 seed Linda Noskova (6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-4) earlier in the tournament.

Miami WTA 1000, other round of 16 results (Hard Rock Stadium, hard, USD 8,770,480)

• Jessica Pegula beat Emma Navarro (20): 7-6 (1), 6-3
• Danielle Collins beat Sorana Cirstea (19): 6-3, 6-2
• Caroline Garcia (23) beat Coco Gauff (3): 6-3, 1-6, 6-2
• Victoria Azarenka (27) beat Katie Boulter (24): 7-5, 6-1
• Elena Rybakina (4) beat Madison Keys (17): 6-3, 7-5
• Yulia Putintseva beat Anhelina Kalinina (32): 6-4, 7-6 (5)
• Maria Sakkari beat Anna Kalinskaya (walkover)