There will be an unprecedented champion in the Masters 1000 and one of the main candidates is
Roberto Bautista
.
With
Djokovic
,
Nadal
and
Federer absent
for the first time since 2004, without four of the world's top six in the draw, six of the
top 15 also missing
, Miami is a land of opportunity.
At 32 years old, the Spaniard has an impeccable career, whose last example was the victory against
Daniil Medvedev
6-4 and 6-2, with which he made it to the semifinals.
"Winning the number two in the world is always going to be special. I work very hard and try to improve every day to play higher level and demanding matches like today [yesterday]. It is one of the best triumphs of my career," he said after.
Finalist in Montpellier and Doha, Bautista lost his last game of this season in the recent tournament in Dubai, against the Italian
Jannik Sinner
(6-4, 3-6 and 7-5), who will be his opponent in search of a place in the fight for the title.
Accustomed to a good start to the season, on this type of fast surfaces, which are his favorites, in the round of 16 of the tournament that the Spaniard does not occupy, he got rid of
John Isner
in the third-set tiebreaker, not without losing his nerves and verbally facing a viewer.
It is Bautista's third win against Medvedev in as many games.
Previously, he defeated him in the final of Chennai in 2017 and in the quarterfinals of Cincinnati, last year, once the Russian had given the stretch.
We are talking about the last finalist of the Australian Open and leader of the Russian team champion of the ATP Cup, of an unstoppable player until he was stopped by Djokovic in the final match of the first great of the season, the last winner of the ATP Finals, a Heterodox tennis player, difficult to decipher, a toothache for any adversary.
These qualities revalue the triumph of Bautista, seventh seeded and winner of nine ATP titles.
His longest run at a Masters 1000 was the 2016 Shanghai final, which he lost to
Andy Murray
.
It will not be easy for him against Sinner, a 19-year-old boy who arrives like a shot, ready to ratify the good omens that his tennis awakens since he won the Next Gen ATP Finals in 2019, the tournament that brings together the eight best young tennis players from every season.
The one that has come to be considered unofficially as the fifth largest is, however, more open than ever.
And none of the survivors have Bautista's experience.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
Rafael Nadal
Novak Djokovic
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TennisThe historic record of the "misfit" Djokovic
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