Their defeats were surprises, but the elements that led to them weren’t. Getty ImagesIn this decade, the Sunshine Double has been largely defined by three players on the men’s side: Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, and Daniil Medvedev. Together they’ve won four titles and reached four finals in Miami and Indian Wells since 2021.Now all of them are out of Miami, and none of them made a final at either event in 2025.Sinner’s absence was a given; he’s suspended until May 4. When his ban was announced, it looked like a golden opportunity for Alcaraz, Medvedev, and others to make up ground on him in the race for the year-end No. 1 spot. So far, that has been an opportunity lost. While Sinner’s point total fell this month, so did Alcaraz’s and Medvedev’s. The Russian, who is down to No. 8, could find himself falling out of the Top 10 for the first time since 2018.On Friday, each took an opening-round defeat that few saw coming. In the afternoon, Medvedev lost in straight sets to 56th-ranked Jaume Munar; in the evening, Alcaraz lost in three sets to 55th-ranked, 34-year-old David Goffin.A post shared by Tennis (@tennischannel)Medvedev, 29, and Alcaraz, who is still somehow only 21, are at different stages of their careers, with different expectations for the future. Losing in Indian Wells and Miami, which don’t lead into a Grand Slam event, is also not the end of the world for players who try to peak for the majors. But each of their losses on Friday continued a long-running negative trend.Medvedev is in a prolonged dry spell. He has 20 career titles, but none since Rome in 2023. So far this year he has yet to reach a final, and has suffered uncharacteristic losses to Munar, Mattia Bellucci, Hamad Medjedovic, and Learner Tien. Is his laborious, attritional style of play getting too hard to pull off against younger guys now that he’s pushing 30? Is he still not over losing two Australian Open finals from two sets up?On Friday, Medvedev said he was physically hampered, perhaps by a bad back. But he also did what he often does when he falls behind: He indulged his irrational side. .A post shared by 🎾 Miami Open 🎾 (@miamiopen)Sometimes in these moments Medvedev rages and slams his racquet. Other times he pesters the chair umpire on multiple changeovers. Two years ago in Indian Wells, he went on an epic rant about the courts. This time he called out ATP Tour Supervisor Gerry Armstrong to complain about the balls, which he deemed too soft and slow. “Who approved them?” Medvedev asked Armstrong, as if this information might help his cause on court.“There were some points I was doing, like, five good shots and they literally don’t do anything,” Medvedev of the balls, which have been a point of contention for him at other events as well. “They don’t go through the court. Yeah, they don’t go through the air.”Now, Medvedev will move on to another element of the game that has raised his ire in the past: clay courts. Maybe this year, instead of blaming them for poor performances, he can use them to give himself a lesson in positivity, and in ignoring what he can’t control. Once upon a time, Medvedev virtually gave up winning anything on dirt, and took every chance he could to mock and denigrate it. But that last title he won in Rome? It was on clay.What. It. Means. 😤 Jaume Munar knocks out the No. 7 seed Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 6-3! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/1t1iSDZixVA few hours later, Alcaraz took center court to meet Goffin for the first time since 2022. Goffin won that match, but there didn’t seem to be much chance of a repeat performance. The Belgian is 34, and this tournament is one of Alcaraz’s homes away from home. The Spaniard won a close first set, and was on serve at 4-4 in the second. No cause for alarm, right?Not exactly. Every Alcaraz fan—and every Alcaraz opponent—knows that an unforeseen dip in level is possible at any moment, and this is when it happened. At 4-4, he opened the door with a couple of wild errors, and Goffin, with nothing to lose, walked through it. Even at 34, his ball-striking remains as pure as ever, and he closed the set with a deftly angled backhand volley winner.The problem with Alcaraz’s spray sessions is that they tend to last for a few games or even a set. The errors continued to flow in the third; he must have overhit his inside-out forehand half a dozen times on the night. He also seemed unsure of when to pull the trigger, and when to wait for something better, and his animated chats with coach Juan Carlos Ferrero didn’t offer any clarity. Despite the crowd’s urging and a few of his trademark full-stretch winners, Alcaraz couldn’t catch up.In the end, he couldn’t even make Goffin, who fed off Alcaraz’s pace and attacked with more efficiency, serve it out. On a crucial point late in the third, Alcaraz finally reined in his forehand and played a safer approach, but that didn’t work, either. Goffin made him pay with a cross-court pass.There’s no reason to panic about Alcaraz, or to reassess how we think he’ll do over the course of his career. What matters is that he has four majors at 21. But his struggles at best-of-three events have been a surprise. In 2024, two of his four titles came at the Slams, where best-of-five gives him more chances to recover from his inevitable bad patches of play.That said, Alcaraz, who is ranked third right now, would like to be seeded second at the Slams. The only way to do that is to earn more points in best-of-three tournaments. He has six more weeks before Sinner returns. We’ll see what lessons he can take from a not so Sunshiny Double into the clay season ahead.
