The Sunshine Double
We are not angry enough. We are not angry enough at the likes of Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer who made us believe that winning the Sunshine Double is easy. Maybe not exactly easy but achievable. Novak won it a record four times (three times in a row from 2014-2016, absurd) while Roger “only” got it on three separate occasions. They have skewed our expectation when it comes to how many major titles define a legendary career in the same way Rafael Nadal has made it seem accomplishable enough to win Roland Garros 14 times. Or Steffi Graf winning the Golden Slam? Ridiculous! She, of course, also won the Sunshine Double. Twice.
The truth is: Winning the Sunshine Double is one of the most challenging tasks in tennis. There are the differing conditions to be accounted for. It goes from hot and dry weather in the desert in Indian Wells where the ball flies through the air like a rocket and one has to go up in string tension in order to clasp onto at least a semblance of control to the often times humid conditions in Miami where the ball leaves the racquet sluggishly, lazily, as if it were rather at the beach watching the seagulls judge my Miami beachwear.
While both hard courts, Indian Wells and Miami surfaces could not be further away from one another in terms of texture. The desert one is rough, grainy, as if sand got caught in it which makes the ball bounce up and slows play down (although players have reported that this year it played a little quicker than usual). In Miami, courts are smooth and even, keeping the ball bounce low and sliding through. In one place, heavy spins work wonders, in the other, hitting flatter through the court brings success.
There is also the travel and the time difference. Getting from the West to the East Coast in the United States usually takes a day in total. You have to get to the airport, you have to drop off your rental car, and then do the same in reverse once you arrive. If players traveled on the Monday after the final (which they probably did) they also ran into significant delays due to a storm along the East Coast. I know that because I did, too. I didn’t travel from Palm Springs or Los Angeles and it still took me 16 hours to get from New York to Miami. My big advantage is that I was already in the right time zone (and that I’m not an elite athlete any longer and can just have 20 cups of coffee if needed - not recommended, but feasible).
A three-hour time difference doesn’t sound like much but if practice is at 10am a player tends to wake up around 7am to eat and get warmed up which is 4am in West Coast terms and this little Math example shows how even a mere three hours can be a pain in the backside. Meanwhile, a 10am call time for me means I roll out of bed at 9:15am, ice my face in compliance with the Paul Newman method, get a black coffee on my way to site and eat a banana in the 90 seconds of changeovers. Again, not recommended but feasible.
All of these aspects are obstacles on the way to the Sunshine Double, some are smaller, others are larger, and tennis players are masters in adapting to new circumstances every week. It is, after all, the only sport that requires their athletes to be decent on three different surfaces in order to be successful.
And yet, the most difficult task in winning the Sunshine Double is neither the time difference nor the contradictory conditions. It’s the ability to remain in a competitor’s mindset, be focused, have emotional stability, for four weeks straight. It’s already hard enough to do it at a Grand Slam tournament that lasts two weeks, to do it for four weeks - day in, day out, focus, sleep, train, compete, recover, focus again - is next to impossible. Still, there are players out there who have pulled it off and Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner are in pole positions to accomplish the same.
We should be (a little) angrier at Novak, Roger and Rafa. At Serena and Steffi. They desensitised us. They made things seem easy that were never meant to be easy. They stole our natural instinct to be in awe. And we still love them.
The first man to ever win the Sunshine Double was Jim Courier. I asked him whether it was harder to win the Sunshine Double or to date a French woman. I’ll spare you his answer but French women are beautiful and complicated. Just like the Sunshine Double. And all other human beings.
Things that make me happy
We had so many good matches over the course of the last four weeks. The women’s final in Indian Wells, the Djokovic/Draper, the Sinner/Fonseca, the Gauff/Bencic. And yet, the best of all was the Tommy Paul and Arthur Fils night session in which Arthur saved four match points to take the win 7:6 in the third. The quality of tennis was astonishing. Tommy Paul rushed the net like Germans rush a place where you can get something for free. And Arthur Fils enthralled the crowd with guts, charisma and a skin so smooth and perfect, I was convinced he was wearing a live filter. Thank you, gentlemen, for this elite late night entertainment.
Things that make me unhappy
There is too much influencing going around in Miami. I was at a beautiful Greek restaurant where a girl bumped my chair five times to take a photo of her octopus. The mature person that I display on the outside smiled passive-aggressively and continued to chew on her feta cheese. The immature person that I truly am on the inside had an internal Larry Davidesque breakdown.
May the final weekend of the Miami Open be a good one. And may I find better beachwear to not embarrass the seagulls the next time I go to the beach.
Yours truly, Andrea
Why not? You teed it up. Ok, I believe Novak, Roger, and Rafa made different parts of the game seem easy- very very different parts. Novak made preparing for shots, racket back, in balance, a skill that every good player knows is more than half the game, look like anyone could do it. Anyone can do it, perhaps half the time, watch Novak and you would think it’s possible to do all the time, in matches, without fail. Roger made hitting whatever shot, in whatever situation, seem not only easy, but actually possible. AND still win competitive matches while doing so. If it was so easy, I would suggest many more pros would be doing it, rather than one gifted player every thirty years or so. And finally, in a nod to last week, Rafa made it look easy to never, ever bail out on a point, whether ahead, behind, match point up, match point down, first round, Wimbledon final. He’s almost one of one, and he still did it into his late thirties, as like a 100 millionaire. That may be the hardest thing to make look easy of them all. :)
Love your writing, and your Big T commentary! I also appreciate how fair and supportive you are to players. Great post.