With 2 of the “big 4” not playing Miami, and Djokovic upset by a player older than him, only Andy Murray headlines this tournament.

Miami has chosen a peculiar form of night scheduling.  At the US Open, they generally favor some Americans, and otherwise, top seeds.  At Miami, they seem to put lower seeds, esp. from Spain or they put Americans in the evening.  So given the choice of putting Murray in the evening slot, they favored Gasquet and Berdych.

Scores will show you that Murray beat Cilic, 64 63, in what seems like a straight-forward win.  However, stats will show that Murray broke 6 times.  Murray started off going down a break to Cilic, only to break back, only to be broken once again, only to be broken again.   Murray was even serving up 52, double break up in the second set, but in the end, got broken, before he broke once again.

If Murray could hold serve, this would have been 61 61 instead.  Coach Lendl has to be happy with the win, but would probably prefer Murray break and hold, and create easy matches against tough opponents.

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The last time Richard Gasquet played Tomas Berdych was last year in Toronto.  Berdych was somewhat injured and Gasquet thumped him 63 62.  This time, Berdych didn’t really have an excuse, but Gasquet seemed to get lots of returns in play and Berdych was misfiring, trying to end the point sooner.  Score ended up 63 63 despite Berdych having had a solid 2013.

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Today, Tommy Haas will play David Ferrer.  Despite both players having been on tour for years, the two have only ever met twice, and not since 2008.  In that respect, Ferrer is up 2-0.  Haas has, of course, been on a tear, upsetting Djokovic, and minorly upsetting Simon (who he has a winning record against).  Ferrer, however, just never seems to lose to players ranked lower than him.  He’s played players that seem like they should beat Ferrer, and yet Ferrer always ends up victorious.

Still, Haas is steady enough and has enough power, that he might be able to bother Ferrer.  Haas’s style is somewhat reminiscent of Federer, if more workmanlike than genius.  If he beats Ferrer, it will be an accomplishment, but perhaps not something too crazy to contemplate.

Later in the early evening, Andy Murray faces Richard Gasquet.  The two have been rivals for a while, at least, until Gasquet.  3 of their meetings have been on clay and Murray’s won two of them including a meeting in last year’s French Open.  Stats also show that Gasquet has won all 3 meetings in a Masters 1000 event although one was a walkover, and the other two were prior to 2008, when Murray made the jump up from about 10 in the world to the top 4.

Murray will be favored, of course, but Gasquet has worked himself up the rankings ever since that “other” Miami incident pushed him into notoriety (he allegedly kissed a dancer who had been partaking of illegal drugs–it elicited a ban which Gasquet was able to appeal).  Gasquet is one of those Nadal contemporaries who saw success in his teens, but has spent the last few years trying to get his rank up.  He now has an Italian coach (unusual since the French generally prefer French coaches–technically, Grosjean, a Frenchman, is also his coach).

Murray has said that he wanted to focus more on Masters 1000 this year.  His coach, Ivan Lendl, has expressed a desire that Murray move up to number 2 where draws could cause Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic to be in one half of the draw (though, by the same logic, Federer and Nadal could appear in Murray’s half too)–this assumes that Nadal stays at number 5 which is possible given how well David Ferrer plays and how many points Nadal has to defend between now and the start of the French Open.