Schedule and Preview Miami Open 2025 Day Nine: Raducanu-Pegula and Djokovic-Korda headline Quarter-Final action

The Quarter-Finals take centre stage on Wednesday at the Miami Open albeit apart from one tie which got cancelled for the day from Tuesday's rain delays. Emma Raducanu, Iga Swiatek and Novak Djokovic all headline the action with the schedule now confirmed.

It all begins with Swiatek on Wednesday who no doubt will be favourite for a crushing win despite the epic run that her opponent Alexandra Eala has gone on this week in Florida. The Filipino who was long touted as a part of Rafael Nadal's Academy has shown this week why she was touted.

Despite defeating Paula Badosa by retirement, she also priorly saw off Madison Keys. Albeit Swiatek is a bigger opposition than either. The former World No.1 has a bit of a habit of ending the runs of players who ordinarily wouldn't be there.

Take Eva Lys at the Australian Open who had her epic run to the Last 16 and faced Swiatek and quickly learned in a pretty crushing defeat. To say Eala has no chance is a bit unfair but it will certainly be an uphill struggle and an off Swiatek only really that heralds that outcome.

For the winner of Alexander Zverev v Arthur Fils, it will certainly be a tough ordeal. It was a bit of a bizarre scene yesterday. While the rain subsided and all games were played, Zverev and Fils for some reason was the first to get culled from the schedule. They will now return today to finally play it and sit as a bit of an odd anomaly in the day of Quarter-Finals.

Even weirder of course is the fact that Zverev or Fils has to return tomorrow with their opponent getting two days rest being Jakub Mensik who managed to get through without playing against Tomas Machac. If Zverev v Fils goes three sets fear for the winner as they have to face a fresh and healthy Mensik tomorrow who unlike the winner tonight will have not gone through the ringer.

Onto more men's action but an actual Quarter-Final this time as Francisco Cerundolo with Pablo Cuevas in his corner is flourishing. Casper Ruud, Tommy Paul and Alexandre Muller all are no mugs but Cerundolo has thrived in Miami to surge through. He will now face a player pretty adept to this tournament in Grigor Dimitrov.

Dimitrov will have been fearing a ranking drop after he managed to reach the final last year and albeit Cerundolo has been superb this week, he will fancy his chances to reach at least the semi-final and defend most of his points tally from last year and a final spot would certainly be the ticket for that to come full circle.

Albeit Cerundolo is perhaps on the back foot against Dimitrov. The Bulgarian opened Grandstand winning 6-4, 7-5 over Brandon Nakashima while Cerundolo had to encounter a three hour rain delay so similar to Mensik yesterday with Zverev, it is back-to-back efforts and it will benefit a simpler task for Dimitrov than for Cerundolo.

Then onto the main courses on the menu for today as Emma Raducanu will return once more albeit with more rest than her last few ties. She saw off McCartney Kessler through retirement then returned a mere 24 hours later with Amanda Anisimova feeling it after blistering her hand against Mirra Andreeva.

A latest American was ticked off the list for Raducanu who surged through and now faces another in Jessica Pegula. Ironically this tie while billed pre tournament wasn't seen as a massive reality due to the current form of Raducanu pre tournament.

She had Emma Navarro first who was likely seen as a Quarter-Final opponent for Pegula and she would've believed after that. Pegula herself said she wasn't shocked with Raducanu beating Navarro and still believed her place was at the top of the sport.

Little would she have thought that she would've returned a mere couple of days later to face her. It is a rematch of two prior ties in their Head to Head with Raducanu famously beating Pegula last year on one of her best runs of her return year at Eastbourne on grass.

But Pegula held the edge the one time they've played on outdoor hard in Cincinnati back in 2022 winning 7-5, 6-4 so it is very much anybody's game. Pegula had it a bit easier with Marta Kostyuk than she did with Anna Kalinskaya who she got embroiled in a three set battle with again. She will be heavily favoured but Raducanu this week has shown that she has batted away any predictions and has often been the outsider at most junctures. A factor that sums up her career, she will look to do it again vs the WTA Queen of Consistency of recent years in Pegula.

Then it is the return of Novak Djokovic who at this point will be favourite to claim the title kind of confounding the recent form woes that he has had showing that he still possesses the game to be a champion.

He faces Sebastian Korda in the Quarter-Finals who he has beaten once in his career back in 2023 when Djokovic returned to Australia after the vaccine ordeal. He won 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 in the final so it was a tough test back then.

But what of it now. Djokovic has not dropped a set so far albeit due to the nature of the draw which has seen big names fly out left right and centre, he's not had to face anybody who can massively trouble him.

Lorenzo Musetti sure but even the Italian has an 8-1 record now against him in favour of Djokovic so in reality was never going to find the win. Camilo Ugo Carabelli and Rinky Hijikata also stood minimal chance.

Sebastian Korda is on the way back after injury travails and has the more difficult copybook. He has seen off Eliot Spizzirri, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Gael Monfils. The latter came in a three set battle yesterday through rain delays so Djokovic will certainly be the fresher of the two.

He lost in the final of Adelaide in January and hasn't done much since but is finally back in the latter stages but can he produce the big win. Time will tell but Djokovic will certainly be the favourite.