MIAMI, March 25, 2015
Since 1985 the best players have been entertaining huge crowds at the Miami Open presented by Itaú, a combined ATP World Tour and WTA Tour tournament played in one of the most glamorous cities in the world. Tim Mayotte and Martina Navratilova were the very first champions and since then the likes of Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer have lifted the men’s trophy. One man stand above all others, however, and that is Andre Agassi, who still holds the record for the most singles titles won with six trophies between 1990 and 2003.
Massive crowd supported this hard court ATP Masters 1000 event in 2014 when 306.842 fans poured through the gates in over 24 sessions in 14 days.
This year’s top-seeds include world number one Novak Djokovic, who will attempt to capture his fifth crown in Miami. The Serb previously triumphed in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2014 with an impressive match record. The 27-year-old has won 18 of his past 19 matches at Crandon Park since 2011. After a first round bye, Djokovic will meet the winner of Paolo Lorenzi and Martin Klizan.
Second seed Rafael Nadal bids to lift his 28th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown, having finished as runner-up in Miami in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014. The Spaniard will take on the winner of Sergiy Stakhovsky and Nicolas Almagro, who entered the draw by protected ranking.
2009 and 2013 champion, Andy Murray seeks a 10th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title and awaits the winner of Donald Young and Yen-Hsun Lu in the second round.
World number five Kei Nishikori, winner of the Memphis title in February this year, looks to improve on his 2014 semi-final run, in which he lost to Novak Djokovic. The Japanese will take on Andrej Golubev or Mikhail Youzhny for his first match.
World number two Roger Federer, who lost in last week’s final in Indian Wells to Djokovic, will take a short break from competition after his defeat. The Swiss starts to prepare himself for the clay court season in Europe. Federer will miss the Masters in Miami for the second time within three years and also wants to spend some time with his family at home in Switzerland.
Alexander Zverev reached the quarterfinals at Irving Tennis Classic last week (photo: Tessa Kolodny)
Some of the young guns made it into the main draw this year. 17-year-old Alexander Zverev defeated Thiemo de Bakker in the final round of the qualifying to reach his very first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 main draw and therewith also gained 16 ranking points. The German teenager will take on Sam Groth in the opening round.
18-year-old Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis, who made it into the round of the last 16 in Indian Wells, was granted a wild card facing Carlos Berlocq from Argentina in the first round.
