The Spaniard, Indian Wells champion, has the challenge of the ‘Sunshine Double’ and cutting back on number one
MADRID, 22 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Starting this Saturday, the Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz faces the Miami tournament, the second Masters 1000 of the season, as a rival to beat after being champion of Indian Wells last week, returning to the titles a young talent who, with the ‘Sunshine Double’, would once again intimidate the rest of the ATP Tour.
Alcaraz ended the worst streak in his early career by winning the event in the Californian desert, his second Indian Wells in a row to win a title again as he had not done since Wimbledon. Numbers within reach of very few, but that drew attention to the meteoric emergence of a player who rose to number one in the world at the age of 19 and who already has 13 trophies in his cabinet.
The second stretch of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 left a more deadly version of the Murcian, also chaining some physical problems, but the last days in Indian Wells showed that Alcaraz is back. In the so-called fifth ‘great’, the one from El Palmar defeated Alexander Zverev, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev, some of the best tennis players in the world.
The Spaniard, who defended the number two ranking against the Italian, once again showed all his quality and potential, as well as a mentality of steel in some strange days in California, with rain and an attack of bees, included. Now, the move to Florida could be confirmation that Alcaraz is once again fearsome.
The pupil of Juan Carlos Ferrero, who can narrow his pursuit of the world number one of an absent Novak Djokovic to less than 300 points, will debut this Saturday, if the rain in Florida allows it, against his compatriot Roberto Carballés, already having a accessible path to a more than possible reunion with Zverev, Sinner and Medvedev, the latter two only in the final.
The German, the Italian and the Russian are the main rivals for the takeoff of an Alcaraz who already asked for a track in 2022 precisely in Miami, when still at 18 years old he won his first Masters 1,000. From then on, the Murcian has not ceased to amaze the world of tennis and, given what was seen in Indian Wells, he seems to have the intention of gaining momentum again based on victories and titles.
The one known as ‘Sunshine Double’, the achievement of titles in the first two Masters 1,000 of the season, motivates the Spaniard a little further, semi-finalist last year in Miami. The ‘Double of the Sun’ was only achieved by Jim Courier (1991), Michael Chang (1992), Pete Sampras (1994), Marcelo Ríos (1998), Andre Agassi (2001), Roger Federer (2005-06, 2017) and Djokovic (2011, 2014, 2015, 2016).