Erin Routliffe and Asia Muhammad win tense first-round at Miami Open

Erin Routliffe and her American partner Asia Muhammad came from behind and won in a topsy-turvey third-set tie break at the Miami Open Masters tournament today against local hope Venus Williams and Canada's Leylah Fernandez.

Routliffe and Muhammad, seeded six for the WTA 1000 event, won 3-6 6-3 13-11 in a match where they survived seven match points against them. They will play Miyu Kato of Japan and Zhaoxuan Yang of China in the round of 16 tomorrow. Kato and Yang are ranked 42 and 44 in doubles respectively.

The match started slowly for Routliffe and Muhammad who began playing together as long-term partners at the end of last year. 

They were broken in the fourth game by Williams and Fernandez who went on to take the set in 33 minutes. Williams and Fernandez started the second set strongly breaking the first game and racing to a 2-0 lead. 

Routliffe and Muhammad consolidated holding serve and then breaking in the fourth game of the set. They then grabbed another vital break in the eighth game before holding serve to win the set 6-3.

Full credit to the New Zealander and her partner for holding their nerve in the deciding third set tie-break with their opponents leading throughout and having their first match point at 9-4. Routliffe and Muhammad clawed back to 9-all, and played the final points of the tie-break confidently for their 13-11 win.

In the singles championship New Zealand's top women's singles player Lulu Sun qualified for the main draw after winning two rounds of qualifying against Maria Timofeeva of Uzbekistan 6-4 7-6 and Donna Vekic of Croatia 6-3 6-3. Vekic beat Sun in the quarter finals of Wimbledon in 2024 and in the same year won the silver medal at the Paris Olympics. 

Sun joined 11 other players who qualified for the main 128-player draw. She lost in the first round to doubles specialist Taylor Townsend of the United States 6-7 3-6.