Men’s action at the 2025 Miami Open will begin with its first round matches on Thursday, March 20 as Joao Fonseca, Kei Nishikori and Cameron Norrie will take to court. Get the best predictions and tips for the day from ATP Miami Open 2025.
Joao Fonseca vs Learner Tien
World number 60 Joao Fonseca will take on the 66th-ranked Learner Tien in what will be a match between two, talented teenagers, both of whom have come from the Next Gen circuit.
Interestingly, while they have never faced off at the highest level, they were involved in two matches at the ATP Next Gen Finals in 2024 with Fonseca having won both.
Since then, Fonseca has gone on to achieve bigger things which includes a title win at the Argentina Open and tournament victories in two Challenger tournaments including one last week in Phoenix.
Tien himself is at his career-best ranking of 66th, having made the quarterfinals of the Mexican Open following a fourth round appearance at the Australian Open – having made it through the qualifiers on both occasions.
In doing so, Tien has also had scalps of Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev under his belt, making this quite a delicious first round encounter between two players we might hear a lot about in the times to come.
Fonseca starts a favourite but we think Tien could put up a strong fight.
Fonseca vs Tien Tip: Fonseca to win in three sets: 7/2
Kei Nishikori vs Yoshihito Nishioka
In our predictions of the day, this is the second match which will see two players ranked in their 60s and this one has two Japanese players going up against each other. In their only previous meeting Yoshihito Nishioka had defeated Kei Nishikori in Cincinnati in 2019 but a lot has happened since.
For now, Nishikori is on a bit of a comeback mission having struggled with his fitness over the last couple of seasons. This year he did make the final of the Hong Kong Open but it took him the Phoenix Challenger last week to win three in a row again.
His opponent, Nishioka was once ranked 24th in the world, but enters this tournament having suffered a shoulder injury in Delray Beach. That had forced him to withdraw from his second round match against Miomir Kecmanovic before he opted out of the Indian Wells Open as well.
There will be some rustiness there for him as compared to the kind of form that Nishikori has shown and as a result we could see the latter hold the edge.
Nishikori vs Nishioka Tip: Nishikori to win: 11/20
Cameron Norrie vs Yunchaokete Bu
This will be the first meeting between Cameron Norrie and Yunchaokete Bu and neither player is in particularly great form coming into this.
While Norrie did enter the third round of the Indian Wells Masters two weeks ago, his consistency took a beating again when the Brit was sent packing in a Challenger event last week.
Other than that result, there were quarterfinal appearances at the Hong Kong Open and Delray Beach Beach Open for Norrie.
Things have been even worse for Bu who is making his debut at Miami. Having begun the season with three successive losses, Bu has won just four matches all year so far, including a first round victory over Nishesh Basavareddy in Indian Wells.
Most times that he has come up with someone remotely challenging this year, Bu has struggled.
Which is what we think might happen in this one too.
Norrie v Bu Tip: Norrie to win in three sets: 7/2
