Milos Raonic made it seven in a row against American Jack Sock on Monday and is now one win away from matching his best showing at the Miami Open presented by Itau.

With his trademark big serve and controlled groundstrokes, Raonic dispatched the No. 22 seed, 7-6(3), 6-4 during the night session at Crandon Park. The Canadian hit 12 aces and won 81 per cent of his first-serve points. Raonic also hit 21 winners to 24 unforced errors. Sock, meanwhile, almost doubled his winners count – 17 – with unforced errors – 31.

Raonic didn’t start the match the calmer player, though. Sock elected to receive and seven points later, including two double faults from Raonic, the American had a rarity against Raonic, a break point. But the No. 12 seed served his way to an early hold, and the young ATP World Tour stars traded holds for the remainder of the set.

The tie-break was decidedly one-sided, though. Raonic sprinted to a 5-0 lead. Sock clawed within three points, but a missed backhand drop shot gave Raonic a one-set lead.

The tie-break seemed to temporarily wound Sock’s spirits as well. After holding serve six times in the first set, the 22-year-old was broken during his first service game of the second. At 3-4 in the second set, Sock had four chances to break back but he failed to convert any of them.

Raonic, who last made the Miami quarter-finals in 2014, will face Bosnian Damir Dzumhur with a quarter-finals trip on the line. Dzumhur beat Mikhail Kukushkin on Monday 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert just keep winning at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments in March. The Frenchmen won the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells earlier this month. On Monday, they moved a step closer to winning the Miami Open, beating Pakistani Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-3.

The No. 5 seeds broke their opponents three times and never faced a break point en route to the straight-set win. Mahut and Herbert’s quarter-finals match will be an all-French affair. They’ll face compatriots Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin.

The No. 4 seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan advanced to the quarter-finals by default. Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, who was playing with Serbian Viktor Troicki, withdrew because of dehydration. Bautista Agut’s singles match Monday afternoon lasted two hours and 28 minutes in humid conditions.

The Bryans will face the remaining wild card doubles team, Australians Omar Jasika and John-Patrick Smith. The Aussies beat Spaniard David Marrero and Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4 on Monday.

South African Raven Klaasen and American Rajeev Ram also won on Monday. They eliminated the Croatian team of Marin Cilic and Marin Draganja 7-6(10), 6-0.

Grigor Dimitrov dug deep to upset World No. 2 Andy Murray 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-3 in the third round of the Miami Open presented by Itau on Monday. The stylish Bulgarian had not defeated a Top-10 player since May 2015 (d. Wawrinka in Madrid) and was looking for his first win over a higher-ranked opponent since January 2016 (d. Troicki in Brisbane), but made the most of his game to grind out the win in two hours and 25 minutes.

Dimitrov started slowly, going down 0-40 in his opening service game and dropping serve two games later. He broke Murray right back to force a first-set tie-break, but hit a rough patch and lost 7-1 to fall behind.

The No. 28 in the Emirates ATP Rankings did not dwell on the negatives and quickly rebounded, racing to a 4-1 second set lead. He took control of the match by extending the baseline rallies, opening up the court with heavy topspin drives and forcing Murray into uncharacteristic errors. Dimitrov went 5-for-6 on break points in the final two sets and improved to 3-6 in the pair’s FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry when Murray hit the ball long on match point.

“[I made] a lot of unforced errors in the third set,” Murray said. “Obviously, I didn’t start the second set particularly well. After winning a close first set you want to try and put your opponent under pressure.

“I think I lost my first two service games to love, so that wasn’t very good. Then in the third set, he managed to get up a break and then I made a lot of unforced errors. Credit to him. He was more solid than me.”

It was Dimitrov’s second win in 13 attempts against a player ranked in the Top 2. His only previous fourth-round appearance in Miami came in 2012 (l. to Tipsarevic).

Nick Kyrgios powered past Tim Smyczek 6-4, 6-4 in 87 minutes to set up a meeting with Andrey Kuznetsov in the fourth round. The Aussie averaged 121mph on first serves and fired nine aces to move into the fourth round of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event for the first time. He improved to 11-3 on the year.

There is a golfing term that perfectly sums up the uneven relationship between the fairway and the green – “you drive for show, but you putt for dough”.

That phrase speaks volumes to understanding the importance of the deuce court and ad court in tennis, specifically relating to break points.

The deuce court is the fairway, always hosting the beginning of the game, and the ad court is the green, where the majority of the winning and losing in our sport takes place.

You would expect Top 25 players to perform better where most of the action occurs – in the ad court – but surprisingly, it’s just the opposite.

An Infosys ATP Beyond the Numbers analysis of the Top 25 in the Emirates ATP Rankings in the 2015 season, and also the first two months of this year, clearly shows that “putting for dough” in the ad court has some catching up to do.

More than three out of four (76.6 per cent) of all break points occurred in the ad court last year in this Top 25 analysis. The only break point opportunity in the deuce court in tennis occurs at 15-40, which equated to just 23.4 per cent of the time.

What’s puzzling is that the Top 25 in the world perform better converting break points in the deuce court than the ad court.

After two months of competition in the 2016 season, those same trends are all very close to the much bigger data set of the 11 months of the 2015 season.

Hidden Djokovic Advantage

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic had a season for the ages in 2015. He went 82-6, winning 11 titles, including three Grand Slams, six ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Djokovic also amassed more than $21 million in prize money.

Interestingly, Djokovic was one of only five players of the 2015 year-end Top 25 who had a superior winning percentage converting break points in the ad court than in the deuce.

Djokovic converted break points 46.6 per cent of the time in the ad court and 42.5 per cent of the time in the deuce court. The other players to be better in the ad court were David Ferrer, David Goffin, Fabio Fognini and Viktor Troicki.

A common thread to figure out why these five players are different needs to focus on the formidable backhand strength each of them possesses, and the increased amount of early action the backhand typically sees when points start in the ad court.

That’s not to say other Top 25 players don’t have remarkable backhands, as they clearly do, but these five have figured out a way to improve their personal ad court performance.

For a right-handed player to turn a backhand return into forehand, it seems easier to do it in the deuce court, where they run around to the middle of the court, rather than running off the court in the ad court.

Ad Court – Best at Converting Break Points

But flying in the face of that wisdom is Rafael Nadal, who converted break points 52.8 per cent in the deuce court, where he would have to run off the court to hit a forehand, and 40.8 per cent in the ad, where he would get to run to the middle of the court.

Practice Court

Another factor for consideration is the practice court.

At all levels of the game, the most common side to practice serve and return is the deuce court, where games naturally begin. Developing the angles and strategy in the ad court simply does not get the same amount of practice time as the deuce court does – even though more than three out of four of the “big” points happen in the ad.

Overview

The difference between good and great in our sport is very difficult to put your finger on and often times exists between the ears, or in the hidden flow of tactics all over court.

Decorated South African golfer, Bobby Locke, who won four golfing “Grand Slams” at the Open Championship, knew exactly the message he was sending with his famous “putt for dough” quote.

These break point numbers shed light on a critical element of our sport and open the door for more insight and discussion as to just how players make the leap from good to great to legend status in our sport.

Turns out Jo-Wilfried Tsonga can bring a big forehand and a mean jumper.

Tsonga, who’s playing in the fourth round of the Miami Open presented by Itau, took some time out of his schedule Friday to meet countryman and Orlando Magic shooting guard Evan Fournier.

The two had never met. At AmericanAirlines Arena, where the Miami Heat play their home games, the two twirled basketballs on their fingers and chatted about their respective sports. “It’s great to be with Evan,” Tsonga said. “It’s always good to be close to basketball… It’s a great sport.”

Fournier, whose Magic team played the Heat on Friday night, said he follows the big tennis tournaments, such as this week’s Miami Open, the second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament of 2016. “As a French guy you have to support your fellow French dude, of course. You have to cheer for them,” Fournier said.

Tsonga joked that the two might play a game of one-on-one as well. “He’s already scared,” Tsonga said. He didn’t get his chance to take on the 6’7” Fournier, but the World No. 9 did swish some jumpers on NBA hardwood.

Kei Nishikori advanced to the fourth round of the Miami Open presented by Itau for the sixth straight year on Monday.

The sixth seed swept past No. 27 seed Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-2, 6-2 in 72 minutes, winning 45 points in under five shots. He will next play No. 17 seed Roberto Bautista Agut for a place in the quarter-finals.

“Everything worked well,” Nishikori said. “Not many easy mistakes and I served well today, so that was the key.”

Nishikori’s best result at Crandon Park, the venue of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament, was a run to the 2014 semi-finals (W/O vs. Djokovic). Dolgopolov is now 9-38 lifetime against players in the Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings.

Bautista Agut achieved his best result at a Masters 1000 tournament on Monday by beating No. 9 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) in two hours and 28 minutes.

The Spaniard jumped to a 6-0 lead in the final set tie-break before a forehand volley winner gave him the match. The win marks the second time this year Bautista Agut has come from a set down to beat Tsonga (Auckland).

Nishikori leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 3-0.