Report by Shreya Agarwal
The Miami Open is a tennis tournament that takes place in Miami every year. It is usually organised in March-April. This year’s tournament was held from 22nd March to 3rd April at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Here’s a summary of the final matches of the tournament:
Men’s Singles: Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz defeated Norway’s Casper Ruud 7-5, 6-4 to win the match. He also became the youngest player ever to win the Miami Open at 18 years of age. He earlier played Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz in the semi-finals and defeated him 7-6, 7-6.
Men’s Doubles: The duo of Polish Hubert Hurkacz and American John Isner took on the duo of Dutch Wesley Koolhof and British Neal Skupski in the finals and defeated them 7-6, 6-4. The winning duo earlier defeated the Italian duo of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini 6-1, 3-6, 10-5.
Women’s Singles: Japan’s Naomi Osaka lost to Poland’s Iga Swiatek in the finals 4-6, 0-6. Swiatek earlier defeated Jessica Pegula 6-2, 7-5 in the semi-finals. Iga Swiatek also took completed the Sunshine Double.
Women’s Doubles: Russia’s Veronica Kudermetova and Belgium’s Elise Mertens lost to Germany’s Laura Siegemund and Russia’s Vera Zvonareva 6-7, 5-7. Kudermetova and Mertens played Catherine McNally and Cori Gauff in the semi-finals and won 6-4, 3-6, 10-2.
What is the Sunshine Double?
Two consecutive tennis tournaments take place in March-April every year. They are the Indian Wells (California) and the Miami Open (Florida) tournaments. The person who successfully wins both these tournaments completes the Sunshine Double. This is an important achievement as extreme heat during this time of the year in the United States makes it difficult for anyone to play. The only players to have completed the Sunshine Double are Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Andre Agassi, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Pete Sampras, and Marcelo Rios while newly joining them is Iga Swiatek.
Image Credit: Twitter of Miami Open