The Sunshine Double-Double was completed despite rain delays on Sunday in Miami.
Marketing, no surprise, does not always fit reality. But Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are certainly the real deal, particularly on hardcourts, and they underscored it by winning in Indian Wells and backing it up in Miami.
They have often won big at the same places, and these were their first Sunshine Doubles. The term has gathered rhetorical momentum in the last 20 years with the rise of Indian Wells and the BNP Paribas Open under the ownership of tech baron Larry Ellison. The slogan was not in use when Jim Courier and Steffi Graf first pulled off the double in the early 1990s. But it captures the spirit of the challenge: winning in the dry heat of the California desert and, after a three-hour time change, the coastal humidity of Miami requires adaptability, staying power and a high SPF.
It was all the tougher when the men’s finals were best-of-five sets, which ended in 2007 in Indian Wells and 2008 in Miami.
Statistically, Sinner’s double was more impressive than Sabalenka’s. He set a new men’s standard by not losing a set despite coming very close against Daniil Medvedev in a torrid Indian Wells final that required Sinner to deal with the kind of heat that has sometimes left him shaky on his sneakers.
But as a spectacle, Sabalenka’s run was superior theater and not because it is a great deal easier to read her hopes and fears on court than it is to read Sinner’s.
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