Eight years forging a legend! Sabalenka achieves unprecedented glory in the Sunshine Double, securing titles in both singles and doubles.

Early yesterday morning, in the Miami Open final, world number one Belarusian player Aryna Sabalenka battled through three sets to defeat American player Coco Gauff, claiming the championship. Simultaneously, she achieved her career-first victories at both the Indian Wells Open and Miami Open. Perhaps many are unaware that, since the 1990s, only a handful of players have won the Sunshine Double titles; in women's tennis, Sabalenka is now the fifth.

However, Sabalenka is currently the first player to have won Sunshine Double titles in both singles and doubles competitions. So, when did she achieve victories in both singles and doubles at the Sunshine Double? What were her accomplishments that year? Today, let this article take you through the details.

In early March 2019, Sabalenka, who had already secured her first WTA 1000 tournament title, partnered with Belgian player Elise Mertens to compete in the women's doubles at the Indian Wells Open. They faced a tough three-set battle in the first round, upsetting the tournament's second seeds, French player Kristina Mladenovic and Hungarian player Timea Babos, narrowly advancing.

In the second round, against the pair of Slovenian player Katarina Srebotnik and American player Abigail Ataw, Sabalenka and Mertens lost the first set but rallied to win the next two, reversing the match and advancing arduously. Perhaps this match boosted their confidence; subsequently, they defeated the American duo of Allie Muhammad and Kayla Christian, the tournament's fifth seeds Chinese player Xu Yifan and Canadian player Gabriela Dabrowski, and the top seeds Czech players Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, clinching the championship. This marked Sabalenka's first women's doubles title of the 2019 tour.

In mid-March, Sabalenka continued partnering with Mertens at the Miami Open women's doubles. Maintaining their winning streak, they successively defeated the Latvian player Jelena Ostapenko and American player Danielle Collins pair, the tournament's third seeds Czech player Barbora Strycova and Taiwanese player Hsieh Su-wei, Xu Yifan and Dabrowski, the wildcard Australian player Ashleigh Barty and Belarusian player Victoria Azarenka, and the sixth seeds Chinese player Zhang Shuai and Australian player Samantha Stosur, securing back-to-back their second women's doubles title of the 2019 season. This also marked Sabalenka's first consecutive doubles victories at the Sunshine Double.

That year, she also won titles in Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Zhuhai, China. Moreover, in 2019, Sabalenka and Mertens captured the women's doubles championship at the US Open. In 2026, despite losing the Australian Open final to Kazakh player Elena Rybakina, Sabalenka embarked on a twelve-match winning streak starting from Indian Wells, claiming back-to-back titles at the Indian Wells Open and Miami Open. After eight years, Sabalenka has become the sole player to have consecutively won Sunshine Double titles in both women's doubles and singles. That concludes today's tennis story; we'll continue tomorrow.Source: Tennis Home, Author: Yixin居士