Last week, American tennis star Taylor Fritz shocked the tennis world by beating Rafael Nadal in the final at the Indian Wells Masters. Incidentally, it was the second title of his career and his maiden Masters 1000 victory. Despite suffering an ankle injury before the final, he managed to secure the win over the 21-time Grand Slam champion. Moving on to Miami Masters, the 24-year-old American recorded a three-setter victory in the tournament opener. After the match, he had a message for everyone.?
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Can Taylor Fritz achieve the ?Sunshine Double??
In his second-round match against Mikhail Kukushkin, Taylor had to battle hard to get past the Kazakh player. In the end, the American tennis star won the match 6-3,5-7,6-3. However, an interesting thing occurred following his victory, as he wrote something on the camera.?
He drew a ?Sun? symbol and wrote ?x2? below the symbol with a question mark at the end. Clearly, he meant the Sunshine Double, as he is trying to get his hands on the Miami Open as well. Later, he took to Twitter and made a comment about it as well. He wrote, ?Before people get pissed this was a joke I thought it was funny.?
Before people get pissed this was a joke I thought it was funny 🤷🏻♂️ https://t.co/AN2HDdSZUS
— Taylor Fritz (@Taylor_Fritz97) March 26, 2022
With the current scenario of social media, it was really clever for Fritz to tweet this. Although Fritz meant it as a joke, it?s not certainly impossible for him. If he can stay fit throughout the whole tournament, he will have a great chance of capturing the ?Sunshine Double?.?
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Notably, very few players have been able to win the ?Sunshine Double? in the past. Only Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Marcelo Rios, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic in the men’s game have achieved this feat. Incredibly, Djokovic has won the ?Sunshine Double? four times in his career.?
Fritz snapped Rafael Nadal?s unbeaten run in Indian Wells
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Entering the final in Indian Wells, not many gave Taylor Fritz a chance against Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard was on an unbeaten run in 2022 and was aiming for his fourth consecutive title of the 2022 season. However, Fritz shocked Nadal, as he beat the Australian Open champion 6-3,7-5 in the final to clinch his first Masters 1000 trophy.?
As a result of his remarkable win, he rose to no.13 in the ATP rankings, which is his career-high. Meanwhile, after winning his 2nd round match at the Miami Open, the 11th seed will face another American, Tommy Paul in his Round of 32 clash.
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Can Fritz win the Sunshine Double? Let us know in the comments.