FLORIDA – Fresh off his trophy triumph in Indian Wells, Carlos Alcaraz will look to complete the double when he takes to court at the Miami Open.
In a stacked field, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev will chase title success in Florida at the second ATP Masters event of the year, held at Hard Rock Stadium from March 20-31.
After a slow start to the season, Alcaraz returned to top form in Indian Wells, where he successfully defended his title to clinch his fifth ATP Masters 1000 crown, atptour.com reported.
In a rematch of last year’s final, Alcaraz started sloppily, spraying errors around the court to fall 3-0 down but raised his level and captured the first set when his Russian opponent’s forehand went wide in the tiebreak.
Second seed Alcaraz smacked 25 winners to Medvedev’s 11 and was especially effective against his opponent’s second serves.
“I enjoy playing these kind of matches with you,” Alcaraz told Medvedev during the trophy ceremony. “Hopefully more finals ahead.”
It was an eventful stay in the California desert for the 20-year-old Alcaraz.
The Spaniard is just the second player to win five Masters 1000 titles before turning 21, with countryman Rafael Nadal the other.
High on confidence, the 2022 Miami champion will aim to become the eighth man to win the ‘Sunshine Double’ and the first since Roger Federer in 2017.
Simona Halep, meanwhile, will make her competitive return after winning an appeal over a doping suspension when she takes the court at the Miami Open where Indian Wells champion Iga Swiatek will look to pull off the Sunshine Double.
Halep, who accepted a wild card into the Miami Open after her four-year ban was cut to nine months by the top court for global sport, will face Paula Badosa with the winner getting world number two Aryna Sabalenka in the second round.
For Halep, the clash against world number 80 Badosa of Spain will mark her first match since the 2022 US Open where she was upset in the first round by Ukrainian qualifier Daria Snigur.
Halep, a former Wimbledon and French Open champion, was suspended in October 2022 after testing positive for roxadustat – a banned drug that stimulates the production of red blood cells – at that year’s US Open. Halep vigorously denied the charges against her.
The Romanian former world number one owns a 2-0 record in head-to-head meetings with Badosa, having never lost more than three games in a set.
Top seed Swiatek missed her Miami Open title defence last year due to injury but returns in stellar form and fresh off a dominant 6-4 6-0 win over ninth seed Maria Sakkari in the Indian Wells final.
Now Swiatek will set her sights on capturing the Indian Wells and Miami Open titles back-to-back, a feat known as the Sunshine Double given the tournaments’ respective locations in California and Florida, for a second time.
Should Swiatek, who will face either Italy’s Camila Giorgi or fellow Pole Magdalena Frech in the second round, claim the Miami title she would join Steffi Graff (1994, 1996) as the only women to complete the Sunshine Double twice.
Florida resident Coco Gauff, who reached the Indian Wells semi-finals, will enjoy plenty of crowd support as she returns to Miami for the first time since her triumph at last year’s US Open.
On the men’s side, Carlos Alcaraz will also chase the final piece of the Sunshine Double after a successful title defence at Indian Wells where he beat reigning Miami Open champion Daniil Medvedev in a rematch of the 2023 California final.
While the Miami men’s draw is stacked, one notable absence will be world number one and six-times champion Novak Djokovic, who expressed a desire to limit the number of events he plays at this stage of his decorated career.
