Sinner wins his second Miami Open and joins the Sunshine Double club

By Harvey Fialkov / Staff writer

MIAMI GARDENS — Only on-and-off again rain delays could slow down Jannik Sinner from winning his second Miami Open title and cap off a truly historic four-week run in which he became the eighth man to pull off the demanding Sunshine Double.

But no man has ever won successive Masters 1000 series events in Indian Wells and Miami without dropping a set until Sinner. Sinner, world No. 2 but closing fast on No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, is the last man to join the Sunshine Double list since Roger Federer in 2017.

“It’s a very, very special moment,’’ said Sinner, who won his 26^th title (same as Alcaraz) and seventh Masters 1000. “Coming here, performing again in a very good way after Indian Wells means a lot to me. Finals are always very, very different and difficult to play. … It was not easy today, but I’m very, very happy.”

Remarkably, Aryna Sabalenka achieved the same feat in the women’s final on Saturday by winning Miami to add to her Indian Wells title earlier in the month. In 2019 she pulled off the Sunshine Double in doubles with Belgian Elise Mertens, making her the only man or woman to do it in both singles and doubles.

This is the fourth time a man and woman won the Sunshine Double in the same year, including Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf in 1994, Federer and Kim Clijsters in 2005, and Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka in 2016.

Joining the Sunshine Double party were the Italian duo of Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini after winning the doubles title this weekend. Despite the rain they don’t call Florida the Sunshine state for nothing.

Surprise finalist No. 22 Jiri Lehecka kept it close in easily the best tournament of his career and his first Masters 1000 final. But couldn’t withstand the constant pressure of Sinner’s remarkable pace and accuracy of his first serves which accounted for 33-of-36 points, for a ridiculous 92 percent.

Call Sinner a serve-bot or macchina, Italian for machine. Whenever Lehecka sniffed a break point, Sinner – who did the same to now No. 3 Alexander Zverev in their semifinal – delivered 129-130-mph aces (10) or unreturnable offerings.

“I tried to understand what would be best to serve,’’ Sinner said. “He’s a very aggressive returner, standing very close. So you have to hit it very precise. If not, he has it on the racquet. Happy how I handled, especially this week, the tough situations. Look, it has to be the serve [my biggest improvement].

“I feel like, especially this week, serving very well. Also when you tend to go a little bit tired physically, when you have some free points and the serve helps you a lot. So that aspect, for sure. Also this month, I feel like here I was serving better than Indian Wells. But, yeah, we worked a lot to be in this position.”

Actually, it was Lehecka, winner of two lower-tier tournaments (ATP 250s in Australia), who entered the final on a run of five matches and 56 games of holding serve, something accomplished by only legends of the sport, most recently Novak Djokovic in 2018.

It took Sinner just two of Lehecka’s service game to end that streak for a 2-1 lead he would ride to a 6-4 first-set start. In the next game Lehecka had Sinner on the ropes for a break at love-40, but the Italian juggernaut cracked five consecutive bombs, including two aces off lines. He wouldn’t face another break point and he only was broken once in the tournament—by American Alex Michelsen in the fourth round.

“Experience and confidence,’’ Lehecka said of Sinner’s serving prowess. “I think that these two things played a big role together today, and he proved that in the crucial moment of first set when I felt that I had a chance to come back into the set, which was that love-40 game, where I had a chance to break him back. That was a moment where I kind of felt that he really served incredible. Five first serves. I felt that if he would play more second serves, I would have a good chance to find my rhythm, and I will have a good chance to put him under pressure from these second serves, but I think that he felt the same way, and he improved. Since that moment, it was super tough for me to put him under pressure in his service games.

“I think it shows how great a player Jannik is, how he was able to come back in a crucial moment and how he was able to help himself with the serve.”

The start of the match was delayed 90 minutes by rain, and then after the first set another cloud burst delayed the start of the second set for another 90 minutes.

Lehecka saved five break points in his second and third service game with clutch serves and net rushes (13-of-19 overall) to keep the scoreboard pressure on the Italian. Sinner’s spectacular stats told the story: 6-for-6 net rushes, 3-of-3 break points saved, and 22 winners with 19 errors compared to 16 winners and 28 for Lehecka.

Sinner got his final break at 4-5 and then served out the match, ending with a perfect forehand volley in the corner. He raised both arms toward his player’s box and coach Darren Cahill, and flashed a rare, huge grin in celebration of his second Butch Buchholz Trophy.

Sinner is now 4-0 against Lehecka and an amazing 102-3 against players ranked outside the Top 20 since the US Open with his lone 2025 losses to Alexander Bublik and Tallon Griekspoor.

Sinner ran his extended record of not dropping a set in his last three Masters 1000 tournament (Paris, Indian Wells and Miami) to 34 consecutive sets. He has yet to drop a set to Lehecka, 24, whose rank will reach a career high No. 14 on Monday.

Sinner missed both Indian Wells and Miami while serving a suspension last year, so he was extra motivated to win both.

“Not dropping a set, this is not relevant,’’ Sinner said. “I feel you need to win the match. That’s the most important. For me, I had it in my mind, it has been, for sure, two tournaments what I have missed last year very much. For sure I felt like last year it was a tournament I have missed. So, it is special. Every tournament, every title is different, especially in its own way.”

His three consecutive Masters titles puts him in legendary company with Djokovic and Rafael Nadal for players who have won three or more 1000s in a row since the series began in 1990.

Sinner and Alcaraz, whose third-round stunning loss to American Sebastian Korda opened up the top half of the draw for Lehecka, are dominating the sport to such an extent that one of them has won the last 19 tournaments they’ve entered together dating back to Madrid 2024.

“It’s not the first time in tennis when we can see this happening,’’ smiled Lehecka. “I think we saw this happening many times before with players with different names. But I think that it’s great, actually. I think it’s very good for the sport, and I think it’s also very good for us, meaning the rest of the Tour, because it shows us the limits, and it shows us that we really need to improve our game to be able to beat them, not just once but to beat them on the biggest stages and beat them more than once.’’

“These matches like today against these guys are showing me that there is still big, big room for improvement,’’ Lehecka said. “I played, in my opinion, a very good tournament here. I was very satisfied with my game. But today I again saw that there is still somewhere to go, and that I will really need to keep improving more and more if I want to be able to beat these guys in the final stages of these big events like Masters and Grand Slams.

Lehecka had a surprise visitor in his corner on Sunday as hockey great and former Florida Panthers star Jaromir Jagr, a friend of his girlfriend’s family, flew in to support him.

In Miami Lehecka announced his arrival as a potential Top 10 threat, similar to fellow Czech Jakub Mensik did last year when he won this title.

The only difference was the size of the check for this Czech.

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About the Miami Open presented by Itaú

The 2026 Miami Open presented by Itaú will be played March 15 – March 29 at Hard Rock Stadium. The 15-day event is owned and operated by MARI and Hard Rock Stadium. The Miami Open is one of nine ATP Masters 1000 Series events on the ATP calendar, a WTA 1000 event on the WTA calendar, and annually hosts the world’s best players, with recent champions including the top players in each tour’s rankings – Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek. In 2025, the tournament attracted more than 400,000 spectators over its 15 days at Hard Rock Stadium. Widely regarded as the most glamorous stop on the ATP and WTA calendars, the Miami Open is defined by the city’s vibrant culture, nightlife, five-star dining and hospitality, iconic beaches, and celebrity appeal, along with its close proximity to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

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