Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski ended their 18-month partnership at the conclusion of the 2020 ATP Tour season, but that hasn’t stopped the pair from sharing the court in 2021.
Alongside Daniel Evans, Skupski overcame his former partner and Bruno Soares 5-7, 7-6(4), 10-7 on Sunday to reach the Miami Open presented by Itau quarter-finals. It is the second straight week that Skupski has beaten Murray in a Match Tie-break. The 31-year-old partnered his brother Ken Skupski to a 6-3, 3-6, 12-10 win over Murray and Soares en route to the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC trophy last week.
Evans and Skupski trailed 15/30 on serve at 5-6 in the second set, but they held their nerves to turn the match in their favour and reach the last eight in Miami. The British pair is making its debut in Miami this week.
The unseeded team will meet top seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah or Marcelo Arevalo and Horia Tecau for a place in the semi-finals. Cabal and Farah are chasing their first title in Miami, with a runner-up finish in 2014 their best result.
Elsewhere, fourth seeds Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz 7-5, 6-4 to book a spot in the quarter-finals. One break of serve in each set made the difference for the reigning Australian Open champions, who powered through in an hour and 22 minutes.
They will next face Oliver Marach and Luke Saville, who received a walkover from Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev to send them into the quarter-finals. Rublev withdrew from doubles citing a non-medical reason.
All-American duo Sebastian Korda and Michael Mmoh needed nearly two hours to take down the all-German team of Tim Puetz and Alexander Zverev 7-6(5), 6-7(1), 10-6. The match was a tale of two sets: six breaks of serve punctuated the roller-coaster opening set, while the second was a tense servers’ contest. Both sets were decided by a tie-break, and the Americans finally pulled away with a six-point run in the Match Tie-break.
Joining them in the quarter-finals, Miomir Kecmanovic and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi toppled No. 8 seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut on Sunday. The Serbian-Pakistani duo came back from a set down and recovered from an early break to win 4-6, 6-4, 10-3.