With the Miami Open finals set to take place on March 28 and 29, the 2026 Sunshine Double is about to draw to a close. Having won the title at Indian Wells and reached the Miami final, both Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner are on the cusp of completing the coveted Sunshine Double.
As one of the toughest achievements in tennis, only a handful of players have won the Sunshine Double, including seven men and four women.
1) Jim Courier
Back in 1991, Jim Courier was the first player to win the Sunshine Double. Back then, Courier was in the early part of his career and entered as the 16th seed at Indian Wells and the 13th seed at Miami. He beat the likes of Guy Forget and David Wheaton to win both titles.
2) Michael Chang
The next year, in 1992, Michael Chang became the second male player to win the Sunshine Double. By then, the American was an established name on the Tour, having won the French Open in 1989.
He was the 12th seed in Indian Wells and the sixth seed in Miami, and he defeated Andrei Chesnokov and Alberto Mancini, respectively, to complete the double.
3) Pete Sampras
In 1994, Pete Sampras was the third entrant to the Sunshine Double winner club. By then, Sampras was the No. 1 player in the world who had won multiple Majors. He was the top seed at both Indian Wells and Miami, and defeated the likes of Petr Korda and Andre Agassi in the finals to win the trophies.
4) Marcelo Rios
Marcelo Ríos won the Sunshine Double in 1998, becoming the fourth man to do so. By then, he was one of the top players in the world and was coming into the events on the back of a runner-up finish at the 1998 Australian Open.
He was the seventh seed in Indian Wells and the third seed in Miami, winning against Greg Rusedski and Andre Agassi in the respective finals to win the titles.
5) Andre Agassi
In 2001, Andre Agassi became the fifth male player to win the Sunshine Double. By then, he was already a multiple Major winner, World No. 1, and an Olympic champion.
He had come close to winning the Sunshine Double previously, having won in Miami three times but lost two Indian Wells finals. In 2001, he put that right by winning against his archrival, Pete Sampras, in the Indian Wells final and then beating Jan-Michael Gambill in the Miami final to complete the double.
6) Roger Federer
The sixth man to do so, and the first male player to win the Sunshine Double multiple times, Roger Federer won the coveted double in 2005, 2006, and 2017. In 2005 and 2006, he was the world’s top player and the top seed at every event. He beat Lleyton Hewitt and Rafael Nadal in the 2005 finals, and James Blake and Ivan Ljubičić in the 2006 finals.
In 2017, the Swiss legend made a great comeback from injury, winning a Grand Slam title in Melbourne after more than four years. He bettered the season with his third Sunshine Double, winning against Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal in the respective finals.
7) Novak Djokovic
Doing one better than Federer, Novak Djokovic has won the Sunshine Double on four occasions: 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2016. 2011 was the Serb’s breakthrough year, during which he started with a 41-match win streak. The streak included titles at Indian Wells and Miami, where he beat Nadal in both finals.
He became the first player to complete a hat-trick of Sunshine Doubles from 2014 to 2016. His opponents in the finals were Federer and Nadal in 2014, Federer and Andy Murray in 2015, and Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori in 2016.
8) Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf was the first female player to win the Sunshine Double and remains the only WTA player to achieve it twice, in 1994 and 1996. By then, the German was already one of the greatest to ever play the game.
She beat the likes of Amanda Coetzer and Natasha Zvereva in the 1994 finals, and then beat Conchita Martinez and Chanda Rubin in the 1996 finals to complete the double.
9) Kim Clijsters
Nine years after Graf’s second Sunshine Double, Kim Clijsters became the second woman to win the coveted double. By then, the Belgian had multiple runner-up finishes at Grand Slams and was one of the top players in the women’s game.
She won against Lindsay Davenport in the Indian Wells final and then beat Maria Sharapova in the Miami final to complete the double.
10) Victoria Azarenka
In 2016, Victoria Azarenka became the third woman to win the Sunshine Double. By then, she already had been a Grand Slam champion, a World No. 1, and had won titles in Indian Wells and Miami, but never both in the same year.
In 2016, she first beat Serena Williams in the Indian Wells final, and then went on to beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Miami final to complete the double.
11) Iga Świątek
Iga Świątek became the fourth woman to win the Sunshine Double in 2022 and is the last player, man or woman, to have completed the double. Back in the early part of 2022, Świątek was one of the top players in the world who had already won a Major title, but it was at the Sunshine Double where the Pole began her dominance on the WTA Tour.
She won against Maria Sakkari to win the title in Indian Wells and then blew away Naomi Osaka in the Miami final.
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The Sunshine Double Has Been Achieved by Both Men and Women in the Same Year
With both Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner one match away from completing the Sunshine Double, one wonders if there have been previous instances when a male and female player have achieved the Sunshine Double in the same year.
Looking at the list of the winners above, the rare instance of an ATP and WTA player winning the Sunshine Double in the same year has happened three times previously. The first time it happened was in 1994, when Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf completed the Double in the same year, followed by Roger Federer and Kim Clijsters in 2005, and Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka, the last duo to achieve the unique feat, back in 2016.
Sabalenka has a tricky opponent in Coco Gauff in the Miami final, as the head-to-head is tied at 6-6 between the two players. On the other hand, Sinner is the overwhelming favorite to win the title against Jiří Lehečka, against whom the Italian has a 3-0 head-to-head record.
