Chung v Isner went 1:08. John played a perfect match, served massive. Chung’s serve is not his strength; playing a serve like Isner makes that even more of a problem. John loves Miami. He loves the high bounce of the court, the overall speed and conditions. Isner has made three Masters finals in his career, been around the block.

He will play Juan Martin in the first SF.

Del Potro had a problem with the Indian Wells crowd v Federer? Ha ha.

The DelPo v Raonic QF was a slug-fest, closer certainly than their IW SF. This we knew given the way Milos was playing in Miami. But the Argentine is simply raising his level when he needs that extra mph on his serve or that clutch point construction that makes him a world class player. This is his 15th win in a row. Despite his moronic fans (STFUP, especially when the man opposite your hero makes an error), he’s the class of the tour at this point, no doubt.

You have to appreciate the Argentine’s almost sandbagging visage and body-language. He looks like he’s about to retire from the match before he hits a critical 129mph serve or comes up with a brilliant rally. All anyone needs to know is he’s the top player in this draw and appears to have enough to challenge deep into the final on Sunday.

Today’s Coric v Zverev hopefully lives up to the billing. Zverev appears to be finding his form, and like Chung perhaps yesterday, maybe Coric runs out of gas. He’s been playing a lot of tennis, competing quite impressively — but does he run out of steam? Hopefully he has enough to stay after Sascha. He’s been able to do that in their meetings thus far.

Anderson should have enough to beat Carreno Busta in today’s other QF. Both have quality tennis, but so much rides on the serve with a guy like Anderson, which means so much rides on Busta’s serve. As in the Chung Isner match, Chung’s serve proved to be the x-factor since Isner is really unbreakable at this point. Pablo has to take care of his serve.

My brain says Zverev with this motivated and better form (he needs to get some confidence going into clay after what happened in AO and IW) and Anderson’s serve and his months-long move up the rankings move them both to the winners circle today.

What I hope happens is Coric takes his tennis to another level (although playing Federer at IW to three-sets in a SF is pretty high; and this is what makes this Miami run a little more difficult — again, does the Croatian have another level or this sustained level having never really been here before?).

But remember, Zverev is quite vulnerable; Chung most recently in 3R AO made that quite clear (63 and 60 in the 4th and 5th). Zverev will need to have a finisher’s mentality to put-away today’s opponent. Or he’s into another street fight.