Roger Federer’s 2017 Golden Sunshine Double Revisited

In total, Federer achieved what might be called a “Triple Sunshine Double”, namely winning in both Indian Wells and Miami in the same season three times. The first two times were in 2005 and 2006, when he was in the middle of probably the purplest period of his career (which lasted roughly between 2003 and 2008), during which time he became the only player ever, male or female, to win two Majors (Wimbledon and the US Open) five times in succession.

However, the reason that Federer’s 2017 Golden Sunshine Double was so special was that it came at the end of his career, nearly 15 years after his initial breakthrough, when he somehow defied both the inevitable effects of ageing and the first serious injury he had ever sustained in his career (a knee injury that necessitated surgery and eventually curtailed his 2016 season) to achieve one of the most magnificent last hurrahs of any sportsperson ever.

That last hurrah began, of course, at the 2017 Australian Open when Federer returned after nearly six months out through injury to win his first Major Singles title in nearly five years (his previous Slam success coming at Wimbledon in the summer of 2012). Indeed, not only did he get back to his previous best but he arguably exceeded it, having spent his long, enforced lay-off specifically remodelling his backhand so that he could finally go toe to toe with his nemesis, Rafael Nadal. All that remodelling and rehabilitation paid off triumphantly when he won a classic five-set final against Nadal, coming back from 3-1 down in the fifth set to reel off five successive games with perhaps the finest single set (or near-set) of tennis ever played.

It was in that context that Federer’s attempt at the Sunshine Double in 2017 was so eagerly anticipated; it was because he had proved conclusively in Melbourne at the start of that year that he was capable of the successful and suitably stylish ending to his magnificent career that it merited. And he not only maintained his Melbourne form during the Sunshine Double, but possibly even improved upon it.

Indian Wells 2017

Indian Wells, the first part of the Sunshine Double, began fairly easily for Federer in 2017, with relatively straightforward straight-sets wins over France’s Stéphane Robert and the USA’s Steve Johnson. However, the third match that week promised to be anything but straightforward, as it was a rematch with a Nadal who surely wanted revenge after losing the Australian Open final just a few months earlier.

The meeting between Federer and Nadal in the last 16 at Indian Wells in 2017 Indian Wells was the consequence of Federer having inevitably dropped down the rankings and seedings after his long lay-off in the second half of 2016. But as in Melbourne early in 2017, he proved emphatically that he had redeveloped his game during his injury lay-off to the point that he could beat Nadal. Indeed, at Indian Wells in 2017, Federer completed a hat-trick of wins (three successive victories) over Nadal for the first time in his career.

After beating his arch-rival so conclusively for the second time in 2017, Federer veritably breezed to victory in the tournament as a whole. He was granted a walkover against Nick Kyrgios in the quarterfinal after the Australian was hit by a stomach bug caused by suspected food poisoning; in the semifinal, he swept past America’s Jack Sock in straight sets; and he similarly won the final against compatriot Stan Wawrinka in just two sets.

And so Federer completed the first part of the Sunshine Double in 2017 in majestic form, winning the tournament without losing even one set en route to triumph. But as he was to prove throughout the first six months of 2017, Federer seemed to get even better in Florida.

Miami 2017

In Miami in 2017, Federer was given a bye in the first round and so his first match came against the then teenaged Frances Tiafoe in the second round. He won that in straight sets and followed suit in his next two matches, against Juan Martín del Potro and Roberto Bautista Agut respectively.

However, things got significantly harder for the great Swiss from the quarterfinal onwards. In the last eight, he just about edged Tomáš Berdych, who actually had two matchpoints in the final set tie-break before Federer won it 8-6. And Federer’s semifinal against a fully recovered Nick Kyrgios was another epic that he just about survived, finally winning the match-deciding third-set tiebreak 7-5.

Consequently, Federer faced Nadal again in yet another final (their third in just the first three months of 2017) and after his close calls against Berdych and Kyrgios it might have been expected that it would be another close-run thing. But nothing could have been further from the truth as Federer produced one of the finest performances of his great comeback year to win 6-3, 6-4, in what was undoubtedly one of the most one-sided matches ever between the two men.

As Always With Federer, He Married Great Success With Great Style

However, the statistics alone do not do justice to Federer’s Golden Sunshine Double in 2017, because, as always with Federer, at his absolute best he married great success with great style. It was not enough that he won both tournaments in the US back to back so convincingly and so soon after his Australian Open triumph; he also did it in the truly inimitable style that had been the hallmark of his whole career.

In both Indian Wells and Miami in 2017, Federer was as fluid, mobile and deadly as he had ever been, and perhaps even more so on the backhand side that he had worked so hard to rebuild after years of failure against Nadal in particular. Indeed, he was so beautifully impressive that the British tennis writer Andrew Anthony was moved to write in The Guardian that his tennis “touches perfection” and even to speculate that the tennis Federer was playing at that time was perhaps the best that anyone had ever played in the history of the sport.

It is true that Novak Djokovic was largely MIA (missing in action, or at least missing from action) for this late golden age of Federer’s career. Having completed his own career slam in 2016 at the French Open, and with his two great rivals Federer and Nadal having seemingly gone into permanent decline, Djokovic seemed to lose interest in, or at least focus on, tennis for a while and it would be another year – at Wimbledon in 2018 – before he returned to his best and won another Major.

Nevertheless, Federer can hardly be held responsible for Djokovic deciding to go “mental walkabout” for a year. And such was his own astonishing level of tennis in 2017 that it is at least arguable that if the two men had met in a significant or even Major final that year, Federer would probably have won.

The Golden Memory of Federer’s Golden Sunshine Double

It is nearly a decade since Federer’s Golden Sunshine Double of 2017, but the golden memory of it lives on. Immediately after completing that double in 2017, he withdrew from the French Open to concentrate on Wimbledon and his focus on grass was triumphantly vindicated when he won his eighth Wimbledon singles title that summer. He would go on to win one more Major (the 2018 Australian Open) and even returned to World #1 soon after that.

Nevertheless, for many FedHeds the absolute high-point of his fabled comeback was the tennis that he played in both California and Florida en route to winning the Sunshine Double that year. And if any tennis player, either male or female, comes close to replicating that sublime form at either of the tournaments this year, the tennis world will be in for another truly glorious treat.