Daily Times

Eleventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov came out strong against top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz on Thursday night and went on to win 6-2, 6-4 in the Miami Open quarterfinals, his first victory over a top-five player in nearly five years.

Fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev, who beat unseeded Fabian Marozsan 6-3, 7-5, will play Dimitrov in the semifinals Friday. Second-seeded Jannik Sinner will face No. 3 Daniil Medvedev in the other semifinal, a rematch of last year´s final that Medvedev won.

Dimitrov said he didn’t want to evaluate the quality of his play against Alcaraz “since I have to play again tomorrow. I´m trying to stay on point. This is how our sport is. You appreciate it, of course. You´re very happy with the current win. Then you have to quickly move on and start focusing on the next match.”

Alcaraz, the 2022 champion, entered this tournament off a victory over Medvedev at Indian Wells. But the world’s second-ranked player had trouble finding his game against Dimitrov and became visibly frustrated numerous times in the first set.

But Alcaraz didn’t go away even after falling behind a break at 4-2 in the second set. He broke Dimitrov at love and then held serve to even the set at 4-4. Dimitrov, though, won the final two games, breaking Alcaraz in the clincher.

Alacaraz said Dimitrov played “almost perfect.”

“I have a lot of frustrations right now because he made me feel like I´m 13 years old,” the 20-year-old Alcaraz said. “It was crazy. I was talking to my team saying that I don´t know what I have to do. I don´t know his weakness. I don´t know anything.”

This was Dimitrov’s first victory over a top-five player since he beat then-No. 3 Roger Federer in the quarterfinals of the 2019 U.S. Open.

On the women’s side, Danielle Collins, in her final year on the WTA Tour before retirement, booked her first ever 1000 series final in Miami on Thursday with a dominant 6-3, 6-2 victory over Ekaterina Alexandrova.

The 30-year-old Collins, will face fourth-ranked Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final. The Kazakhstan player was pushed all the way by veteran Victoria Azarenka before coming out with a 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (7/2) victory. Collins denied this week that her great run to the last four was a result of her playing with freedom after announcing her intention to retire at the end of this year.

But once again the American looked relaxed and in control as she took full charge of the contest against Russia’s Alexandrova, who had beaten world number one Iga Swiatek in the fourth round before downing fifth-seed Jessica Pegula of the United States.

“It’s even more special coming in my home state,” said Collins, who hails from St. Petersburg near Tampa.

“I’ve had a couple of good years here, but this is definitely the most memorable,” she added.

Alexandrova broke early in the first set but Collins swiftly got the contest back on serve before breaking again to go 4-2 up and take the set.

The American then broke on Alexandrova’s first service game in the second and ran away with the set to complete a 74 minute victory.

“I’ve followed all of her matches this tournament, it was fun watching her because we have a very similar game style. It is tricky when it is like that,” said Collins.

“That forced me to concentrate harder, react faster and really forced me to play up at my highest level,” she said.

The 24-year-old Rybakina returns to the Miami final for the second straight year after losing to Czech Petra Kvitova in 2023.

Her form — and the absence of any of the top three in the world — suggests she will be the strong favorite against Collins.

So far this year Rybakina has won titles in Brisbane, Abu Dhabi and her first WTA 1000 final of the year in Doha. Her serve looked too much for Azarenka in the first set but then faded badly in the second before breaking to go 3-2 up in the third. But the 34-year-old Azarenka, a three-time winner at Miami, showed all her dogged spirit as she broke back to make it 5-5 and keep alive her hopes of an unlikely run to the final.