👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.

On tap today, we’ve got: a different kind of Miami heat, Eala takes out Iga, poor scheduling in Miami, Alexander Zverev faces harsh reality, Jessica Pegula takes on Alexandra Eala, plus more in tennis news today.

Let’s tennis!

Three Points

🎾 Something’s not right in Miami: On Wednesday, two health scares have raised some serious questions about the conditions for play at Hard Rock Stadium.

  • First: Grigor Dimitrov inexplicably lost his footing and could have easily rolled an ankle as he fell to the ground. After he won his match against Francisco Cerundolo, he couldn’t catch his breath, remained in his chair for nearly 30 minutes per Tennis Channel, and needed assistance leaving the court. Even then, he had to stop and sit again just outside the court.
  • Second: Not long after Dimitrov, Emma Raducanu required medical attention during her quarterfinal match against Jessica Pegula. While the medical team checked her vitals and gave her an ice massage, the physio had to physically hold her up as Raducanu seemed to slump in her chair and struggled to keep her eyes open.
  • What she said: “I just felt really dizzy,” Raducanu told TennisOne after the loss to Pegula. “I felt faint.” She added: “It was very humid out there and we had a long wait, so maybe it was just an accumulation. [There were] just physical points as well, with long rallies and heavy conditions. I don’t know how I kind of regrouped in that second set but, in the third, I definitely struggled a little bit.”
  • A bit of controversy: During the ordeal, Raducanu received a medical time-out. If that was from loss of conditioning due to the humidity, it’s not allowed by tour rules. But, because the time-out was granted, it has raised questions about whether or not something else was at play for her and Dimitrov. There is no word from Dimitrov at this time.

🎾 Continuing to roll: Alexandra Eala, the Filipina who scored a wild card into the Miami Open, is continuing to win in the most joyous fashion. On Wednesday, she claimed her third win in a row over major titleholders by taking out Iga Swiatek 6-2, 7-5.

  • What she said: “I don’t know what to say,” the 19-year-old said after the match. “I’m in complete disbelief right now, and I’m on cloud nine.”
  • Her game plan: “My coach told me to run, to go for every ball, to take all the opportunities I can because a five-time (grand) slam champion is not going to give you the win.”

🎾 The unforced error we all saw coming: This is a self-inflicted scheduling wound if we’ve ever seen one. Thanks to several hours of rain on Tuesday, the match between Alexander Zverev and Arthur Fils was postponed to Wednesday. In a bit of poor planning, organizers added that match to a full schedule on the stadium court on Wednesday, which was crunched even further because of a later start time of 1:00. Guess what? Three three-set matches put even more stress on the schedule, and the final match between Sebastian Korda and Novak Djokovic was postponed until today because it violated the 11:00 rule.

  • An (understandably) angry crowd: This poor scheduling meant the people who bought tickets for the evening session not only had to wait more than two hours before they could even get into the stadium, but then they were shorted a match that included a massive headliner in Novak Djokovic.
  • A learned lesson?: No way! Today, there are five matches scheduled for the stadium court again with a 1:00 start time. What could they have done? The same thing they should have done yesterday: pick one of the matches and put it on the grandstand court.