Defending champ Hubert Hurkacz edges towards center stage after Karatsev battle

WATCH: A powerful player off the ground, Hurkacz is more than capable of thrilling a crowd with some fine shotmaking.

The Sunshine Swing tournaments aim for a certain explosiveness, capitalizing on its Slam-adjacent status to host events that produce capital-C Champions—players whose victories at the either reinforce or foreshadow major greatness.

That grand framing has been somewhat at odds with what both the BNP Paribas and Miami Opens have yielded of late. While last week’s Indian Wells Tennis Garden saw young American Taylor Fritz finally bloom into a Masters 1000 winner, it all but ignored its defending champion Cameron Norrie, who won the postponed 2021 edition last fall and played all but one of his four matches off Stadium court.

Norrie noted the discrepancy after his quarterfinal defeat to another rising star, Carlos Alcaraz.

“I think it showed a little bit lack of respect,” the Brit said bluntly towards the end of what was his first and only transcripted press conference for the tournament.

Miami has been similarly ambivalent about its own surprising 2021 winner, Hubert Hurkacz. While Norrie remains ranked outside the Top 10—in contrast to women’s defending champ Paula Badosa, who played almost exclusively on Indian Wells’ Center Court—Hurkacz is a Top 8 seed. The only defending champ on site since Ashleigh Barty’s retirement, he also owns a good number of archetypal bona fides one would expect from a future ATP star. In the aftermath of his Miami Open breakthrough, he rolled into the Wimbledon semifinals and handed Roger Federer so thorough a beatdown that it left many to wonder if the Swiss Maestro would ever play again—and so far, he hasn’t.

Still, the 25-year-old has been relegated to the side courts to begin his title defense, even if such up-close access delighted the Grandstand crowd as he won his second straight match on that court: a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 win over No. 29 seed Aslan Karatsev.

Hurkacz was far from his typically amiable self at points throughout the two hour and 22-minute encounter, especially as Karatsev broke early in the second set and threatened to open the decider in similar fashion. Perhaps taking a tact from two-time champion Andy Roddick, the Pole’s racquet smashes were decidedly less unbridled, and he punctuated the win by vertically launching a ball towards the sky. No throats or shins were indeed harmed in the making of Monday’s match.

In fact, the only sore spot came from Karatsev himself, who took a sudden medical timeout to address a hip/thigh issue a game from the match’s conclusion. Even umpire Aurélie Tourte expressed uncharacteristic shock to exclaim, “It’s 5-3, [Hurkacz] is serving for the match, and [Karatsev] is taking a medical timeout.”

Boos reverberated about the court—one of the rare times a Russian has incurred a crowd’s wrath, even in the wake of the country’s invasion into Ukraine—as the 6’5” Hurkacz haplessly lumbered about, both to stay warm and to shake off obvious frustration.

It would all be for naught as Hurkacz’s serve, which had already produced four aces in one game and 24 in total, would help him ultimately edge back into the Round of 16. South African Lloyd Harris stands between "Hubi" and a return to the last eight.

In a quarter with top seed Daniil Medvedev, the Pole could keep Medvedev from reclaiming the No. 1 ranking from Novak Djokovic by beating him in the quarterfinals. More importantly, another deep run at the Hard Rock Stadium would almost certainly guarantee him permanent booking on Stadium court—and earn him the respect he already deserves.