Tennis

Stephens beats Muguruza to reach Miami Open quarterfinals

Published Mar. 26, 2018 3:17 p.m. ET

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) Sloane Stephens advanced Monday to the Miami Open quarterfinals by beating No. 3-ranked Garbine Muguruza in a matchup of 2017 Grand Slam champions, 6-3, 6-4.

Stephens, a South Florida native and the No. 12 seed, earned her fifth career victory over a top-five player. Stephens won her first major title at the U.S. Open in September, but arrived at Key Biscayne with a record of only 3-4 this year.

Muguruza, who won Wimbledon last summer, has also struggled in 2018 and fell to 8-6.

Qualifier Thanasi Kokkinakis, who upset Roger Federer in the second round, was unable to build on the biggest win of his career. Fernando Verdasco rallied from two mini-breaks down in the decisive tiebreaker and beat Kokkinakis 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4).

---

More AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-Tennis

---

Follow Steven Wine on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Steve-Wine. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/steven-wine

Get more from Tennis Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic