American star Taylor Fritz is on a roll, ready to face Alcaraz in Miami Open quarterfinal

Taylor Fritz doesn’t watch too much tennis in his downtime, but he made sure to have time set aside to watch the final match of the afternoon on the stadium court at the Miami Open on Tuesday.

On one side was Carlos Alcaraz, the No. 1 player in the Association of Tennis Professionals rankings and 2022 US Open champion. On the other was Tommy Paul, Fritz’s close friend and, at No. 6, the second highest-seeded American left in the men’s draw of the 2023 Miami Open. No matter how it went, Fritz would be in the middle of the highest-profile match of the 2023 Miami Open so far.

With Alcaraz’s straight-sets romp of Paul on Tuesday, Fritz is set to face the best player in the world for the first time in his career Wednesday around 8:30 p.m. on the stadium court at Hard Rock Stadium

“I’m really excited for it. I think a lot of people are excited for that,” said Fritz, 25. We’ve never played each other and I think it’s an interesting matchup, and I think it’d be a lot of fun to play him.

Fritz is the highest ranked American in the world and now solidly in the top 10 getting to No. 5 last month. He’s playing the most consistent tennis of his career this year, and he’ll face his toughest test yet at Hard Rock Stadium when he squares off against the tournament’s seed.

Both are on a roll so far in Miami Gardens. Fritz, the No. 9 seed, breezed to a 6-4, 6-4 win against No. 7-seed Holger Rune in just 1:24 in the first match of the day at the stadium. A few hours later, Alcaraz rolled to a 6-4, 6-4 win against Paul, the No. 16 seed, in just 1:36 in the third match at the stadium. Neither has dropped a set so far in the Open, serving as two of the tournament’s biggest draws.

Alcaraz gets introduced each time as the No. 1 player in the world and Fritz is always introduced as the No. 1 American in the world. They’ve played all their matches in the stadium, center stage at one of the biggest tournaments of the year with about as stacked a field as they’ll see all season. Alcaraz is well established after winning the 2022 US Open last year, but Fritz is surging to stardom, too, and could vault as high as No. 6 by the end of the weekend if he goes on to win the tournament.

Fritz also won the 2023 Delray Beach Open last month and has now reached the quarterfinals in four straight tournaments, winning 20 of 25 matches to start the year.

“It’s great that just my average level has gone up a lot,” Fritz said. “I’m playing at a level that I think I can do over and over again, and it’s nice that level can put me in the top 10. I felt like last year I was very boom or bust, like either playing really good on a week and I could just go win the tournament, or I would just lose in the first or second round, so it is nice to feel more consistent.”

This and that

▪ No. 10-seed Elena Rybakina became the first player into the Miami Open semifinals Tuesday, dismantling No. 25-seed Martina Trevisan for a 6-3, 6-0 win on the stadium court.

▪ No. 14-seed Karen Khachanov ousted No. 2-seed Stefanos Tsitsipas from the Open with a 7-6, 6-4 win Tuesday at the grandstand court in Round 4. It was a rematch of their meeting from the 2023 Australian Open, when Tsitsipas beat Khachanov on his way to a championship appearance.

▪ Jannik Sinner, even at only 21, can sometimes get overshadowed by Alcaraz’s teenage surge to stardom, but the 6-foot-2 Italian is making an early case to be perhaps the chief rival to the 19-year-old Spaniard in the next generation of men’s tennis. His torrential start to 2023 continued with a 6-2, 6-4 dismantling of No. 6-seed Andrey Rublev on the grandstand court Monday in the Round of 16. Sinner, the No. 10 seed, has won 17 of 21 matches to start the year and now will face Emil Ruusuvuori in the quarterfinals later this week.

▪ Bianca Andreescu, 22 and unseeded less than four years removed from winning the 2019 US Open, was one of the feel-good stories of the Open until another injury Monday forced her to withdraw in the fourth round. Andreescu, who upset No. 7-seed Maria Sakkari in Round 2 on Friday and was going toe to toe with No. 18-seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in Round 4, needed a wheelchair to get off the stadium court after injuring her left ankle. “I’ve never felt this pain before,” she said before leaving the court, which meant something coming from the Canadian, who also suffered a torn meniscus in 2019 and a nagging back injury last year, and was starting to inch toward a return to her old form.