Winning Indian Wells and the Miami Masters – known as ‘the Sunshine Double’ – is one of the toughest feats in tennis.
Even an all-time great like Rafa Nadal, who has won 30 Masters 1000 tournaments, has not won both in the same year. In fact, Rafa has won at Indian Wells thrice but has lost out at Miami in five finals.
Only seven tennis players have achieved the Sunshine Double.
Jim Courier
Courier won four Grand Slam titles, with two each at French Open and Australian Open, and holds the record of being youngest ever finalist at all the four Grand Slam.
Courier completed the Sunshine double in 1991, when he beat Guy Forget at Indian Wells and David Wheaton at Miami, becoming the first to complete the Sunshine Double.
Michael Chang
Chang’s greatest feat was winning the French Open at 17. He also reached the finals of the Australian Open and US Open in 1996, where he lost to Boris Becker and Pete Sampras respectively.
In 1992, Chang won Indian Wells by defeating Andrein Chesnokov. At Miami, he defeated Sampras and Courier in straight sets, then beat Alberto Mancini in the final.
Pete Sampras
Sampras, the 14-time Grand Slam champion, had an awesome 1994, in which he won the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and also completed the Sunshine Double.
At Indian Wells he defeated Petr Korda in the final, while at Miami he defeated both Courier and Andre Agassi.
Marcelo Rios
Rios has the dubious distinction of being the only male player ever to be world number one without winning a single Grand Slam title, with only a solitary final at the Australian Open to his credit.
He was the first player from Chile to be world number one and he won five Masters titles in his career. He defeated Greg Rusedski and Andre Agassi in the finals to win at Indian Wells and Miami respectively.
Andre Agassi
Agassi was the fourth American to win the Sunshine Double.
In 2001, he defeated his great rival Sampras at Indian Wells and another American, Jan-Michael Gambill. While he has won at Indian Wells only once, he is joint highest winner at Miami, with six titles.
Interestingly, Agassi’s six wins were against six different players, namely Stefan Edberg, Sampras, Roger Federer, Gambill, Carlos Moya and Goran Ivanisevic.
Roger Federer
In 2005, Federer won easily at Indian Wells in three straight sets, against Lleyton Hewitt, in a tournament where he did not drop a single set. At Miami, 29th seed Nadal took two sets off him in the finals, before Federer staged a remarkable comeback to win in five sets.
2006 was the last year of these two tournaments played in best-of-five formats and Federer retained both titles by defeating James Blake and Ivan Ljubicic respectively, both in straight sets.
In 2017, Federer claimed the Sunshine Double for a third time by defeating Stan Wawrinka at Indian Wells and Nadal at Miami.
Novak Djokovic
Novak’s feat of four Sunshine Doubles – in 2011, 2014-2016 – is unlikely to be repeated.
At Indian Wells he has two wins over Federer, one over Rafa, and once he defeated Milos Raonic. At Miami he has two wins each against Nadal and Andy Murray, and one against Kei Nishikori and Guillermo Canas.
In 2011, one of his best years on the circuit, he defeated both Federer and Nadal at Indian Wells.
This year, giant Argentine Juan Martin del Potro won at Indian Wells and is in super form. Can he emulate the seven who won the Sunshine Double?
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