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Jiri Lehecka entered his first Masters 1000 final at the Miami Open in the best serving form of his life. He had won every service game in the tournament, a feat achieved by just eight men at this level before him. The ease with which he brushed aside all nine break points against him reflected his confidence.
It took two return games for Jannik Sinner to viciously drag the Czech back down to earth. Ten minutes in, Sinner had already broken Lehecka’s unbreakable serve. As has usually been the case over the past few years, Sinner burst into the lead and refused to let it go.
In a match repeatedly delayed by irritating rain, it took Sinner some time to reach his intended destination, but the Italian eventually secured one of the greatest achievements of his increasingly legendary career, defeating the 21st seed 6-4, 6-4 to win the Miami Open title.
This is a historic victory. Sinner is just the eighth male player to win Indian Wells and Miami, also known as the Sunshine Double. Sinner, the world No 2, has now won 34 consecutive sets at Masters level, dating back to his triumph in Paris in November. He is just the third man behind Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal to win three consecutive Masters events and the first to do so without dropping a set in each of those three triumphs.
A day after Aryna Sabalenka, the women’s No 1, followed up her own Indian Wells title by winning in Miami, this is also the fourth time in history that a male and female player have completed the Sunshine Double in the same year.
The past few weeks have been the greatest of Lehecka’s career. His ability to strike the ball with such devastating pace and clean timing has been evident for years, but it was not until Miami that things began to come together. He reached the final with a win over the sixth seed, Taylor Fritz, and an imperious dismantling of Arthur Fils in the semi-final.
However, no matter how well his opponents may be playing, Sinner represents such an enormous step up in quality compared to the rest of the field. Lehecka already learned this the hard way. In their most recent meeting, a third-round match at the French Open last year, Sinner humiliated the Czech, leading 6-0, 5-0 before winning 6-0, 6-1, 6-2.
This was a better showing from Lehecka. After dropping serve early, he found his rhythm behind his enormous serve and forehand, limiting Sinner’s opportunities until deep in set two. He generated one half-chance of his own while leading 4-3, 0-30 on Sinner’s serve in set two. However, in addition to his nuclear-grade groundstrokes, his movement, return of serve and innate toughness, Sinner is in some of the best serving form of his life. Every time the Czech generated a half chance, Sinner’s serve instantly shut it down.
Sinner’s dominant March feels even more noteworthy considering how he started the year. His five-set Australian Open semi-final loss to Djokovic, was far from ideal and he followed it up with one of his poorest performances of the last few years, losing in three sets to Jakub Menšík. But Sinner is not a robot, despite how some of his opponents describe him, and the season is long. It comes as no surprise at all that he has quickly found his rhythm.
With this result, the race for the ATP No 1 is on. Sinner received a three-month doping suspension last year, meaning he has had zero points to defend in February, March and April. These excellent recent performances place him around 1500 points behind Carlos Alcaraz.
Alcaraz and Sinner have continued their duopoly at the beginning of the season: the world No 1 winning in Australia and Qatar, and Sinner taking the Indian Wells and Miami Open titles. However, perhaps the biggest upset of the year is three months into the new season they still have not faced each other.
