Pegula expects good things from coaching change, Fritz loses to Brazilian at Miami Open

As the No. 5 player in the world, Pegula doesn’t have any sort of talent problem. Those too-early exits at Grand Slams, though, suggest a need to diversify her game and become more consistent.

“(It’s) all stuff I’ve worked on before. It’s just fine-tuning certain things,” Pegula said, “things I feel like could get a little better or things I do well and it’s just getting more comfortable using them in a match.”

Knowles and Merklein also bring a slightly different perspective. The coaches have spent their entire careers coaching men. While the difference isn’t so extreme, Knowles and Merklein are still used to working with different personality types.

Pegula had her choice of coaches and she went with these two for precisely that reason. She didn’t want someone “recycled.” She wanted something fresh and now she’s getting it.

“It was definitely a little bit of an adjustment,” Pegula said. “(We’re) just getting to know each other on the court, which is really the biggest part of it — what I like and don’t like; what cues work, what don’t; what I respond well to, so that’s definitely been a learning curve a little bit, but all part of the process.”

American stars lose after long delay

Sunshine finally smashed through the clouds above Miami Gardens around 2 p.m. on Saturday after more than 24 hours of near-nonstop rain, but the day still was a dark one for American stars at the Miami Open.

Tommy Paul, the No. 13 seed, retired because of an ankle injury; Frances Tiafoe, the No. 21 seed, fell to Christopher O’Connell; and Taylor Fritz, the No. 12 seed and top-ranked American man in the field, suffered a stunning upset loss to Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild inside the stadium.

Seyboth Wild, who is now into the third round after making the tournament field in qualifying, felt right at home in South Florida, where a large swath of Brazilian fans made the center-court showdown feel like a home match for Seyboth Wild.

As fans waved Brazilian flags and donned soccer jerseys, Seyboth Wild shocked Fritz with a 6-4, 6-3 win, sending three of the top four Americans bowing out of the Open before the sun set on the first Saturday of the tournament.

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