Rain kept players off court for hours at the Miami Open on Tuesday, but when the skies cleared and the courts dried, Aryna Sabalenka and Jasmine Paolini took charge in the quarterfinals without dropping a set.
Miami: Draws | Scores | Order of play
World No. 1 Sabalenka booked a spot in her first career Miami Open semifinal with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over No. 9 seed Zheng Qinwen. In a rematch of the 2024 Australian Open final, Sabalenka triumphed in 1 hour and 36 minutes.
No. 6 seed Paolini will be Sabalenka's semifinal opponent on Thursday, thanks to her 6-3, 6-2 win over Magda Linette earlier in the day. Her match was delayed for roughly three hours due to the inclement weather.
Here are takeaways from the first day of quarterfinal action in Miami:
Forza in Florida: Paolini broke new ground for her country on Tuesday. With her victory over 34th-ranked Linette of Poland, she became the first Italian woman to reach the Miami Open semifinals.
Italian women have put together a sterling dynasty on the Hologic WTA Tour, but before this year, they had surprisingly gone 0-for-6 in Miami Open quarterfinals. That list includes Grand Slam finalists Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, with Martina Trevisan in 2023 being the most recent beaten Miami quarterfinalist from Italy.
Paolini, who reached two Grand Slam finals last year, broke that duck with her 77-minute victory over Coco Gauff's conqueror Linette. The Italian was steely all day, erasing seven of the eight break points she faced.
Before Miami, Paolini had not reached any quarterfinals in 2025, and she was bested in the Round of 16 at all three of this year's previous WTA 1000 events: Doha, Dubai and Indian Wells.
"I think I didn't play bad this season, but I didn't have a great result," Paolini said after Tuesday's win. "But I was there. I lost many matches, but to big opponents.
"[It] was tough, but at the same time I was repeating to myself that, you know, I'm there. Maybe I need just a little bit more of confidence. It came here, maybe."
Indeed, Paolini is turning the tide in her favor in Miami, as she eyes her second WTA 1000 title. Paolini's first WTA 1000 title came last year in Dubai -- a result which kickstarted her 2024 breakthrough rise into the year-end Top 5.
Sabalenka's second-set surge: Sabalenka had also never made it into the Miami Open semifinals until tonight. She has won 16 of her 18 WTA singles titles on hard courts, but her previous best Miami showings were quarterfinal appearances in 2021 and 2023.
The top seed cracked the Final Four in Miami at last, but she needed to survive a challenge from reigning Olympic gold medalist Zheng to do so. The Chinese player lost the first set routinely, but she read the Sabalenka serve sublimely in the second set. Zheng broke Sabalenka three times in a row to lead that set 4-2.
Sabalenka, though, steadily righted the ship. She pulled off a huge escape from 0-40 down to hold for 4-4, then took charge for good with punishing service returns to break for 6-5. A quick hold in the next game gave the World No. 1 a well-earned win.
It truly was the return game that helped Sabalenka through that match. She won 29 of Zheng's 35 second-serve points -- a nearly 83 percent success rate, leading to seven breaks of serve. Sabalenka is now 6-0 lifetime against Zheng.
Top 10 players in semifinal clash: The stage is now set for two of last year's top players to battle in the semifinals. Sabalenka leads 3-2 in their head-to-head.
Paolini won their first meeting in a third-set tiebreak at a British grass-court ITF Challenger event in 2017, but Sabalenka won their first WTA Tour match, indoors at Linz in 2020.
They split their next two meetings, both at hard-court WTA 1000 events -- Paolini won at 2022 Indian Wells, Sabalenka won at 2023 Beijing -- before their latest clash at last year's WTA Finals Riyadh. Sabalenka won that match 6-3, 7-5.
The victor would move one step closer to becoming the first Top 10 player to win a WTA 1000 title this season. Amanda Anisimova won this year's first WTA 1000 event in Doha, then Mirra Andreeva went back-to-back with titles in Dubai and Indian Wells (Andreeva is now well inside the Top 10).
