Of the 11 players who have accomplished the Sunshine Double, Swiatek is the youngest. Djokovic and Federer are the greatest of all time.
If they triumph in Miami, Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek can both complete the Sunshine Double.
It’s an accomplishment that not everyone can achieve. Seldom can a player lay claim to having accomplished the Sunshine Double, one of the most difficult tasks in tennis.
It entails taking home the Miami and Indian Wells crowns in the same year. Only 11 players—Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer—have ever accomplished this feat, with two of them having done so more than once.
Tennis Majors presents a list of the 11 male and female players who have achieved the Sunshine Double as the Miami Open gets underway.
In 1991, Jim Courier, an American, became the first player to capture the renowned Sunshine Double. Prior to traveling to California, he was rated 26th in the world. He defeated Guy Forget in five sets in the Indian Wells Masters 1000 final, and then a few days later, he accomplished the double by defeating David Wheaton in the Miami final.
It was a triumph that set his career in motion. A few months later, Courier defeated Andre Agassi in the Roland-Garros final to win his first Grand Slam victory. He also made it to the US Open final, where Stefan Edberg defeated him.
Another American accomplished the same accomplishment a year after Jim Courier’s first. The twentieth player in history to accomplish the Sunshine Double was Michael Chang. Although he won Indian Wells by virtue of a fortunate draw (he faced no one in the Top 20), he later proved that this was no coincidence by triumphing in the Miami Masters 1000, defeating Pete Sampras and Courier before overwhelming Alberto Mancini in the championship match.Pete Sampras entered the 1994 American tour as one of the heavy favorites since he was the world no. 1 and had won the previous three Grand Slam events.
And the American didn’t let us down at all. Despite only dropping one set during his journey to the Indian Wells event final, he was defeated by Edberg in the semifinals. In the championship match against Petr Korda, trailing two sets to one, Sampras mustered the strength to overcome the deficit and win.
After defeating fierce rival Andre Agassi in three sets in the championship match a few days later in Miami, he became the third player in history to accomplish the Sunshine Double. He later won both competitions once more, but never in the same year.)
Three men had already accomplished the Sunshine Double, but until Steffi Graf, the unchallenged world No. 1, rectified this statistic, no woman had. The German even went one better, pulling off this incredible accomplishment twice—a first in tennis history.
Graf defeated Natasha Zvereva in the Miami Open final and Amanda Coetzer in the Indian Wells final in 1994. This made the German the first player to win the Sunshine Double twice, which happened in 1996. She defeated Chanda Rubin in Florida and Conchita Martinez in the California tournament final.
Marcelo Rios was the first man born outside of the United States to win the Sunshine Double in 1998. The Chilean became the first player in history to win the Sunshine Double without ever winning a Grand Slam event when he defeated Greg Rusedski in the Indian Wells final and then easily defeated Andre Agassi in the Miami Open final.
Completing the Sunshine Double, one of the greatest American players of all time joined three of his countrymen. Andre Agassi eventually prevailed in the Indian Wells Masters 1000 and the Miami Open in 2001, following years of near misses. He defeated Pete Sampras in the championship match and Lleyton Hewitt in the semifinals to capture his maiden Indian Wells trophy. To accomplish the Sunshine Double, he went on to defeat Jan-Michael Gambill in the Miami Open championship match.
Throughout his career, Roger Federer, one of the best players in tennis history, has continued to push the limits of the sport. When he was ranked #1 in the world in 2005 and 2006, the Swiss became the first male player to win the Sunshine Double twice. After an 11-year break, he accomplished the same feat in 2017.
He triumphed over Rafael Nadal in the Miami Open championship match and Lleyton Hewitt at Indian Wells in 2005. Federer made history the next year by being the first player to win the Sunshine Doubles twice in a row. In California, he outplayed James Blake, and in Florida, Ivan Ljubicic.
The Swiss then overcame fellow countryman Stan Wawrinka in the Indian Wells final and Rafael Nadal in the Miami Open final in 2017 at the age of 35.
Following a wrist injury-plagued 2004 season, Kim Clijsters returned to compete in 2005, finishing outside of the Top 100. Following wrist surgery, the Belgian found it difficult to return to her peak. But she did see some light at the end of the tunnel on the US swing.
She surprised everyone by winning both Indian Wells and Miami, making history as the first female Sunshine Double winner since Steffi Graf. In the California final, she defeated Lindsay Davenport; in the Miami Open final, she defeated Maria Sharapova.
Nearly every significant record in men’s tennis is held by Novak Djokovic. Only the Serb has completed the Sunshine Double four times in history, and he is the only player to have done so three times in a row.
2011 saw Djokovic triumph over Rafael Nadal in the Masters 1000 Indian Wells Open and Miami Open finals, after his victory at the Australian Open. He defeated Rafael Nadal in the Florida tournament final and Roger Federer in the California tournament final three years later.
2015 saw Djokovic defeat Swiss Roger Federer in the Indian Wells final once more, and then Andy Murray in the Miami Open final a few days later.
The following year, in 2016, he accomplished a historic quadruple by defeating Kei Nishikori in Miami and Milos Raonic of Canada in the Indian Wells final. The last male player to finish the Sunshine Double is him.
The tenth player to finish the Sunshine Double is Victoria Azarenka. In women’s tennis, she joins Kim Clijsters and Steffi Graf. In 2016, the Belarussian accomplished this feat by defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Miami Open final and Serena Williams in the Indian Wells tournament final.
At the age of twenty years and ten months, Iga Swiatek became the youngest player in history to accomplish the Sunshine Double in 2022. She overcame Naomi Osaka in the Miami Open final and Maria Sakkari in the WTA 1000 Indian Wells final.
She achieved her second career Indian Wells tournament victory in 2024. She’s going to try to pull off a historic double in Miami.
